Flowerless Darkness
by RaeynnBeau
Summary: Emotions are high since Kyoto, and months later our favorite Shinigami have been sent on their first case; to Unzen to investigate a series of lives exchanged for those who should have died - but what does an Angel have to do with it? Eventual Tsuzuki/Hisoka.
1. Prologue: A Sign

Inspired by EggDropSoup's "Dans l'Obscurité"; set as an alternate story arc or inserted story arc between Kyoto and the GenSoKai Arc (since the manga is still unfinished). This chapter's title, Mejirushi, means "A Sign".

**Mejirushi**

_Black; everything is black … _

_Who is that …?_

_I walk toward something stark white against this blackness; I can't make out the fact that it is someone's body standing there, and yet somehow I know that it's a person … So white against all of this darkness…_

"_Oi!" I call out to them, trying to get them to turn towards me – to acknowledge me. There is no answer at first; but as I get closer, I feel something is wrong …_

"… _Are you alright …?" I hear myself ask, and I am close enough now to touch this person. Putting a hand on her shoulder, she turns, and I see that there are countless needles stabbed into her eyes and tongue, blood running down her face and out of her mouth. _

_The world turns red as she opens her bloodstained lips and screams …_

* * *

Kurosaki Hiskoka – age sixteen, occupation Guardian of Death … And currently going completely stir-crazy. It had been several months since he had been confined to desk work; it was a "reprieve" from case work, or so Konoe-kachou had explained. The blond in question didn't see it like that though – he saw it as a punishment. During the Kyoto case, which had been his last job in the field, they hadn't accomplished anything except intense injury to his partner and himself, as well as property damage and all-around turmoil. Muraki was still at large, and they had no idea where he was hiding, or what that mad serial killer would try next.

More often than not, when he was doing paperwork, his mind wandered to all sorts of places; his job, his life, Muraki, the other Shinigami in his division, his partner … But that last one was something he tried to avoid if at all possible, because that train of thought usually lead to confusing results …

"Nee! Kurosaki-ku—n!" he was startled out of his musings by a very chipper voice that was very close to his head – he hadn't realized he had actually gotten to work, or the fact that Wakaba was attempting to get his attention. Judging by her proximity as he jumped back a step to put some distance between them, she had been calling him for quite a bit.

"Aa … Sorry Wakaba-chan – what is it?" he asked, shaking his head a little, disoriented. He hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights; honestly, he wasn't sure why. As far as he could tell, he hadn't been having nightmares – or at least if he was, he couldn't remember them. Wakaba put her hands to her sides, leaning forward a little and puffing her cheeks out a little bit; it was honestly pretty cute, considering how old she looked and her current stature.

"You didn't hear a word I said?" she asked this indignantly before leaning a little closer to Hisoka, and the blond could feel a flicker of concern underneath her light hearted indignation. "Are you feeling alright, Kurosaki-kun …?" He nodded faintly before he responded,

"Yes; it's just early." The answer was a little short, but then, he was known for having that kind of attitude around the office, so it wasn't out of the ordinary. Wakaba scrutinized him for another moment or two, her brow curls bouncing slightly as she straightened up when she seemed satisfied that he was telling the truth.

"Tatsumi-san was looking for you," she said, taking her hands off of her sides, "I think he has a case for you and Tsuzuki." Green eyes widened slightly when he heard what she had to say – a case! He hoped she wasn't mistaken as he turned and hurried off without so much as another word to her. Wakaba pouted at his retreating back, but smiled a little after he had turned the corner and was gone before she turned to head back to her desk.

"Kurosaki-kun," Tatsumi greeted as he saw the blond round the corner quickly. He was seated with Tsuzuki at his desk; there was a case file sitting in front of him, though it had yet to be opened – they had obviously been waiting for the teenager to arrive.

"Tatsumi-san," Hisoka said in return, nodding towards him before pulling out the chair to his desk and sitting down at it. "Wakaba-chan said you were looking for me?" The secretary nodded, and as he moved to open the file on the desk so he could show the two of them, it was Tsuzuki's turn to interrupt.

"Hisokaaaaa," he whined, "you didn't say good morning to meee!" Hisoka rolled his eyes, setting a hand on the brunet's head and shoving him away as he tried to nudge up against the blond. He didn't even justify the statement with a response – he wanted to jump up and get away from him; Tsuzuki's feelings of playfulness were leaking into him, but underneath that was worry. And Hisoka _hated_ feeling that from anyone – it didn't help that this was the second time today. There wasn't even a reason; sure he had nightmares now and again, but he always managed to get the sleep his body required to function, and that was enough. He was _fine_; especially today – he had slept soundly the night before, for the first time in weeks.

Tatsumi cleared his throat loudly and the two partners paused, annoyed expression on the blond's face turning into a more neutral, if not questioning one, while he couldn't see what Tsuzuki had done to his puppy-like face. The secretary was holding up the manila case file, looking stoic if a little impatient, but Hisoka could feel the _tiniest_ flicker of amusement coming from him.

"If you don't mind … I'd like to go over this case with you, now that you're both here," he said when he had their attentions, getting up from the chair he was seated in. "Come; Konoe-kachou is waiting." Tsuzuki finally got off of the blond at that statement, and Hisoka glanced at him, green eyes meeting violet – if the Chief was interested in the briefing, then this had just become a slightly more important case …

The briefing room was dark when they entered, and Konoe-kachou was already there, looking at some paperwork while waiting for the two shinigami to arrive. _If Kanoe-kachou is __**waiting**__ here for us, it must be important_ … it occurred to Hisoka as he nodded at the chief, who did the same in return to he and his partner. After everyone else sat down, the blond took up a seat at the end of the table, at least two chairs away from anyone else in the room – which included Watari, one of the Gushoshin next to a very large stack of books that he clearly just brought in and set down, as well as Tatsumi, the Chief, and Tsuzuki.

"The area you two will be travelling to is Unzen," Tatsumi said, clicking the button on the slide projector to show the first slide to the room. It was of the volcanic mountain this time of year – for all the danger of the relatively recent eruption, during the springtime the azaleas were beautiful, Hisoka thought to himself. "There have been several cases of people living when their names were on the register, and several cases of people dying prematurely that seem to nearly coincide in this area. And the ones that have died haven't been from natural causes…"

"What do you mean, haven't been natural …?" Tsuzuki asked, expression for once serious and attentive as Tatsumi clicked the shutter and the next slide came across the screen.

"All of the victims have been found like this," he said, gesturing to the screen. The girl laying on the ground had her face frozen in a scream, and there were probably fifty or sixty needles sticking out of what were once her eyes and tongue, the latter of which was bloated and lolling out of her mouth to one side. Hisoka flinched slightly and his partner looked away from the screen for a moment; even the Chief shifted in his seat at the sight. Another click of the shutter and another girl, this one with curly blond hair, seemed to have suffered the same fate. _Click_. Shoulder length black hair. _Click_. Short business cut. _Click_. Hisoka was more disturbed that the only way he could tell these people apart was by their hairstyles – they were all women, and because of the needles in their mouths and eyes, they were almost indiscernible from each other.

"There are seven cases altogether of people living, and someone dying in their place like this," Tatsumi said, eventually getting through pictures of all seven women. "All of them women, though there seems to be no correlation between age or social status. And, in the middle of this is this woman." Another _click_, and there was a picture of a young lady, probably in her late twenties or so, partially obscured by the curtain of the window she was looking out of. She was pretty, if a little fragile looking, with long dark hair and a thin face. "Her name is Ikeda Aneko, and she was the first to have lived when she was supposed to have passed on. She claims to have seen an angel, and it was that that protected her from her timely demise."

"How was she supposed to have died?" Hisoka asked after a moment; he was staring at the young, almost sickly looking woman in the picture – for some reason, all of this seemed strangely familiar to him, but he couldn't put a finger on why that was.

"She has a fatal disease called," Tatsumi answered, though clearly the information wasn't something he thought was worth mentioning, because he had to open the file on the table and flip a few pages before he answered. "sFI. It's progress was slowed almost to a stop, to the point that the disease has started to reverse through some stages. This started happening when these strange occurrences started about two months ago." The blond nodded, making no further comment on it; just, something seemed strange about these women.

"Anyway," the secretary continued, "she claims that an angel is healing her – however, this is a sort of special case; her husband, Ikeda Muchiro, has forbidden her from leaving the house, due to her fragile condition, and he won't allow her to see any visitors. But, you two need to talk to her." Tsuzuki and Hisoka both nodded, waiting for Tatsumi's explanation on how they were supposed to accomplish this. It seemed to Hisoka that they could just go when the husband wasn't home to see Aneko, but for some reason that likely wasn't an option. _Click_. Another picture on screen – this one of an old, traditional house that looked pretty solid, though the outside maintenance looked to have been lax for a while.

"Recently Muchiro was promoted in his job, and they moved into this house; however, as you can see, while the house is still well intact, the yard work to be done is extensive," Tatsumi explained. _Click_. Another picture of the side of the house – in places the grass was tall enough to reach the bottom of the window. _Click_. The back yard it looked like there had been a stone path and a small pond, but it was overgrown with weeds and the water in the pond looked green and thick with scum. "In this case, we've hired you two out as part of a landscaping business."

Hisoka nearly fell out of his chair; Tsuzuki, on the other hand, clapped his paws together, tail wagging happily. "Really, Tatsumi! I love gardening!" _Of course that would be your response_ … The blonde thought sourly; he knew that Tsuzuki had a small garden he tended where he lived, and that was fine, but … This was _much_ bigger job than tending to a small plot of land – and Hisoka had _never_ done yard work in his _life_.

"I've had the Gushoshin take out a number of books for you on the subject," the secretary continued, putting his hand on the stack of books that Hisoka had noticed earlier, "so you should be prepared to at least feign doing whatever they want done to the yard."

"Ne – Tatsumi; are you sure it's a good idea for the kid to do so much physical labor?" Watari asked with a small frown, looking over at the blond in question, who glared slightly and looked away. Just because he had never done this sort of work before didn't mean he couldn't – and just because he wasn't large or particularly muscular didn't mean he was weak and unable to do that sort of work!

"I'm sure it will be fine," he said in an aloof tone, though he could tell that the red head in question was not impressed by the answer. He felt Watari's eyes on him, and that obnoxious feeling of concern that Hisoka was loathe to become accustomed to. Tatsumi, however, continued on, answering the question as if Hisoka hadn't responded at all.

"I am sure Kurosaski-kun will rest when he needs to; and besides, the yard work is trivial – the main reason you will be doing this on the assignment is so that you can be there when Ikeda Muchiro leaves; he keeps odd hours, and so, it is hard to tell when he'll be at home and when he'll be out to the office. So rather than have you stake out the residence and wait until he's gone, it would be easier to get him and his wife to trust you and become used to you so that they will be more likely to give you information."

"I'm sure it also helps that whatever you two earn during this job goes straight to the division …" Watari said boredly, tracing the wood grain on the table before shooting the secretary a look. Said brunet froze in the front of the room, glasses gleaming so that it was difficult to make out his eyes before he put one first on top of the open palm of his other hand without nodding – but that was basically confirmation.

"Stingy secretary …" Hisoka heard Tsuzuki mutter under his breath, and all he could do was sigh; it was true, Tatsumi was a penny pincher when he could be, but this was going a little far. He didn't know how much people usually made completely landscaping a property, but he was ready to guess that it wasn't pennies … However, a job was a job, and the work wasn't the reason they were there anyway; if they didn't get any work done, they wouldn't send any money to the division; and if they did, whatever. It didn't bother the blond. He just wanted to get _out _of this office as soon as possible.

"Anyway – that's everything for this case; take the file and the books and get a head start on reading them – you are to report to the Ikeda residence tomorrow morning," Tatsumi added as the Gushoshin flicked the lights on and the slide show ended. _Tomorrow Morning!_ Hisoka was ... actually not at all surprised about the time constraint for learning anything about gardens and the like; after all, people were dying that were supposed to be living, and visa-versa. It was just a bit of a shock to him, was all. "Here is the address of your hotel, and remember - ¥3000 per day for food; and not a penny over that. Understand _Tsuzuki_ …?" he gave the purple eyed Shinigami a pointed look as he handed over the envelope that apparently had their food budget inside, and Tsuzuki laughed awkwardly before nodding and looking morose.

"Oh – Tsuzuki?" The Chief addressed the chastised shinigami, who turned to look at him with a questioning expression. In his hand was a crisp bill, which he was apparently offering to the purple eyed 70-year shinigami.

"A Senbetsu!(1)" he asked, eyes getting huge and excitement filling the room so suddenly that Hisoka nearly choked, and he was several feet away from the idiot.

"Unzen is home to the Dagashiya-san Museum; (2) bring me back something from their gift shop." Tsuzuki's face nearly hit the floor it fell so suddenly and so hard. Hisoka just snorted; when was his partner going to learn that Konoe never gave away money for free out of the goodness of his heart …? But that was beside the point. Standing from the chair he was seated in, he pushed his hands into his pockets after taking the case file and putting it under his arm. Then, he turned and started to leave the room.

"Ah; oi – Hisoka," Tsuzuki called when he noticed that the blond was leaving the room, "did you forget the books we have to read …?" Pausing at the door, the green eyed boy turned back slightly towards the room and said simply,

"You carry them." Before leaving, the whine of 'hidooooi' accompanying his exit. (3)

**Tsu zu ku …**

**(To Be Continued)**

1 – "Senbetsu" is a sort of sending off gift you give to someone who's going on some kind of a trip.

2 – Dagashiya-san Museum is a museum dedicated to the history of toys and sweets from 1940-80, and you can purchase some delicious sweets in their gift shop … My my Konoe-kachou; such a sweet tooth xD

3 – He's basically saying, "How meeeeaaaaan!" to Hisoka for making him carry all of the books himself.


	2. The Caged Nightengale

Chapter title, "Kago ni Uguisu" means "Caged Nightengale"

**Kago ni Uguisu**

Hisoka returned to his desk, opening the case file and setting it down in front of him so that he could look more closely at what they were dealing with. These murders – and he was certain that they were murders, with the way the corpses were defiled – were brutal and … Almost … strangely familiar … but he couldn't figure out why. It also didn't make much sense to him that they were being given what looked like a pretty heavy case on their first real job outside of the office since Kyoto … Up until this point, other Shinigami had been assigned to any big cases that broke out in Kyushu, which weren't many admittedly, but … Odd that they were being assigned to this case now; somehow it seemed to Hisoka that this wasn't going to be your average, catch-the-demon-and-banish-it sort of case. It didn't help that Tatsumi had mentioned something about an Angel; he knew they existed, or at least were reported to, but they were _extremely_ rare, and he himself had never heard of a case involving one …

The blond Shinigami was so engrossed in reading the files inside the manila envelope, staring at the grotesque pictures of the bodies, trying to figure out why he felt like he had seen them before, that a sudden hand on his shoulder made him jump slightly, though he managed to bite his tongue so that the rather undignified 'yelp' couldn't escape him like it wanted to. Green eyes only slightly wider than normal turned to face the offender, who was none other than Tsuzuki; when he realized that, the same eyes narrowed in annoyance, and he brushed his partner's hand off with a stern,

"What?" before turning back to the file in front of him to keep flipping through it. The small flicker of hurt bothered Hisoka more than he'd like to admit, but he had already reacted; there was nothing he could do about it now … He was just not pleased that he'd been so caught off guard.

"Ah … Nee … Hiskoa; it's lunch time – you've been staring at that file for almost four hours …" Hisoka blinked twice – _four hours_? There was no way it had been that long … Shooting a disbelieving glance up at the clock on the office wall, he paused, realizing that Tsuzuki was right – it was 1:00, he had arrived at work around 8:30, and the briefing had taken them until about 9:00 … _Huh; time flies when you're having fun …?_ Hisoka thought to himself sarcastically as he stretched a little, neck creaking from being in the same position for much longer than the blonde had realized.

After about two minutes of continuing to sit there, Hisoka realized that Tsuzuki wasn't going away. Sighing in frustration, he didn't turn to look at the brunet that was probably not much better than a foot away from him; instead he just asked in a less sharp tone, "what, Tsuzuki?"

"Well, I told you – it's lunch time," the violet eyed male behind him; the green eyed teenager didn't even seem to hear him, but that didn't deter his partner – Tsuzuki continued as if the blond had said something along the lines of 'yeah, so?' "So … I was thinking that we could go and get something to eat!" Hisoka's brow furrowed slightly; normally, when they were confined to desk work, they left each other to their own devices – the blond didn't like to spend money out of pocket on restaurants or fast food; it was much cheaper to buy from a grocer and make something if he was hungry.

_Come on; please say yes – I don't know when the last time you ate a decent meal was, and now with this case and all—_

That was all Hisoka needed to hear. Obviously Tsuzuki had forgotten to block himself off because the blond hadn't even been _trying_ to hear what the brunet was thinking, but that nauseating worry that was splashing over him in waves wasn't exactly easy to ignore, and Tsuzuki must've been hoping pretty desperately for the blond to accept for those thoughts to come through so loud and clear without any extra effort on the sixteen year old's part …

"I'm not a _child_, Tsuzuki," he half growled, annoyed. "When I'm hungry, I'll eat." His tone was dismissive, as he usually was with his partner, and left little room for argument – though he was surprised how long his partner stood there behind him, clearly wanting to say something, _anything_, to get the blond to come with him, but already knowing that any prodding would not be easily forgiven.

"Alright 'Soka – I just thought maybe you'd like to eat out for once, you know, before we get started on this case tomorrow—"

"We'll have plenty of time to eat out while we're on the case; I'm not taking time out of preparing just to waste time and money on something foolish." Hisoka cut him off curtly, and that was the end of the conversation. Something in his chest twisted when he felt the pang of hurt that came from the violet eyed shinigami as he turned and walked away, and he felt the sharp urge to turn and apologize for what he'd said … He didn't know why he'd dismissed Tsuzuki so harshly; it had just … Come out that way … He'd sort of guiltily noticed that he had been much more short with his partner recently than he used to be, and that was saying something … Turning back to the file in front of him, he sighed in frustration and flicked it shut hard enough that he heard the bones in his thin wrist crack a little, but he ignored it as he laced his fingers together, propping his elbows on his desk and pressing his chin against his hands.

Staring off into space wasn't helping; he realized this fact after about fifteen minutes. It was just making him think about Tsuzuki, and that always made him feel weird. Weird in a sort of sick, confused, hot, uncomfortable way – and now there was a heavy helping of guilt caked on the side; but that seemed to be happening a lot lately. The blond had stopped trying to untangle the unpleasant web of emotions that he harbored surrounding his partner, and had instead just sectioned that part of himself off with red tape and took as few trips there as possible … Sighing again, he stood and stretched, wincing as his stiff body protested the foreign movement, glancing at his partner's desk, where the books from the Gushoshin were sitting, still neatly stacked. (Though that was the only neat thing about Tsuzuki's desk …)

Reaching over, he picked a couple of them up, deciding that he still wanted to prepare for this case, but he needed a change of scenery, as it were. Setting the books on his own desk, he resumed his position in his chair, his legs and back burning slightly from the movement after sitting still for so long as he started to read the book on the top of the stack …

* * *

_Black; everything is black …_

_Is there someone standing there …?_

_Even though my body is tired, and it feels like I'm walking through a waist deep swamp, I move towards something stark white against the darkness … It's so sharp in contrast that I can't help looking at it; it's almost like I'm being drawn to it._

_As I approach, the figure turns; she is whiter than paper, than bone, and her eyes are staring, huge and black – frightening. Her stringy black hair is falling over her shoulders, and over her red yukata._

"_Hello …?" I ask uncertainly; she says nothing in acknowledgement, but her lips curve upwards in a slow, long smile, though they remain firmly pressed together – I feel tendrils of uneasiness twisting around in my gut. Something is wrong._

"_Are you alright …?" I hear myself ask. She doesn't answer. Instead she slowly opens her mouth, and a long, black tongue with a thousand glinting silver needles lolls out; my heart leaps in disgust as I notice that the black of her eyes glints too – were there always needles there, or did they just now appear? … A waterfall of blood flows from her defiled corpse as it falls towards me, reaching out to me, and I hear a whisper that I can't quite understand …_

* * *

Hisoka jolted slightly, disoriented, and unsure of where he was for a few seconds. However, once he identified the background noise he was hearing as the familiar sound of his partner snoring, he remembered. He was in the run down little hotel room that Tatsumi had rented for them not too far away from where they would be working in the morning. Dragging himself into a sitting position, he pressed his eyes closed for a moment, trying to get rid of the spots that were dancing in front of them, staring at the rise and fall of his partner's body as he breathed heavily in his sleep.

Had he been dreaming?

He couldn't remember.

Frowning slightly, he paused, thinking back for a long moment; no, he really couldn't remember if he'd been dreaming or not. He supposed he could have been; it was probably that stupid falling dream that people sometimes had, which would explain why he had jolted awake so suddenly. Reaching up and pressing his fingers to the side of his head, tangling them in his hair a little, he glanced at the little alarm clock that sat between his futon and Tsuzuki's. According to the harsh red numbers that it took a few moments for Hisoka to focus on, it was four-thirty in the morning.

Getting out of bed slowly and quietly, he went into the bathroom for a few minutes before exiting, being sure to turn the light out before he opened the door so he would be less likely to wake his partner. It was bothering him that he couldn't remember if he'd been dreaming – sure, not knowing was better than the nightmares that normally plagued him, or at the very least more merciful, but … It unnerved him a little, because he was _sure_ he'd been …

Well whatever; it didn't matter.

Laying down proved to be a fruitless venture – his mind was too frustratingly distracted to allow him a moment's peace to try and get back to sleep for the last couple hours he had before they had to get up and go to the house. After a few rounds of light tossing and turning did nothing to alleviate his wakefulness, he sighed, defeated, and pulled himself up, making his way over to his bag and digging around in it before removing his clothing and mechanically replacing it with his uwagi and hakama. Getting up from his crouched position, he paused, turning to look at Tsuzuki's prone form for a long moment before shaking his head a little despite himself. He was convinced his partner could sleep through anything, be it a mosquito bite or an earthquake.

_Baka, _he thought to himself in a much more fond way than when he used the word aloud before turning and picking up his worn rubber-soled jikatabi and shinai, and then heading outside. This particular ryokan was sorely lacking any sort of courtyard, unless you counted the rather pitiful excuse for a garden in the back of the building – but, there was an expanse of field further behind that, and while the grass was tall, and that would hinder his movement slightly, it would be the acceptable place to practice.

Stepping outside, he put his shoes on at the door before turning and closing it behind himself, breathing in the chilly morning air. It was early May, so it was still cold out at this time of day, but Hisoka didn't mind; the air felt like sharp little pin pricks against his skin, and if he wasn't awake before, he certainly was now. Silently, he moved across the small yard in the near darkness; the sun had yet to hint that it was coming over the horizon yet, but the world was light enough that he could make out most things without difficulty, which he proved when he deftly avoided two statues and carefully started to pick his way through the tall grass of the field.

After stretching, he started his basic warm up, his body mechanically going through the motions with the painstaking precision of someone who had been trained extensively in the art; his mind however … he focused on every single movement of his shinai – every movement of his feet. Every breath that escaped his chest. It had become a sort of routine for him after what had happened in Kyoto; whenever he woke up, which for a long time had been often, he would practice – either until he had to stop to go to work, if it was one of those days, or until he felt like he could fall back asleep without laying there and thinking … Funny that now, even though he hadn't had a nightmare, he was still following this strange little ritual; there was a strong compulsion he felt to do this every single day, for as long as he could spare time.

As said compulsion wasn't detrimental to his work or health, he hadn't found a reason to argue with it, so he had just allowed it to continue, as he did now, methodically and carefully moving in repetitions, not noticing when the sun started to slowly slip up over the horizon …

"Hisoka," a quiet voice caused him to freeze mid-motion, arms above his head, hips pushed forward, startled by the unexpected noise. Letting his arms fall and turning to face where the sound had come from, he saw Tsuzuki standing there, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, which was a really strange thing to see when he was used to his partner wearing suit pants and white button-downs underneath that black trench coat that could have been surgically attached to him and no one would know the difference. The blond's breath came out in sharp pants; he didn't know how long he'd been practicing, but he had been working hard – he was just realizing now that his throat burned and he had a tenseness in his arms and legs that he should probably stretch out again.

"Uh," his partner started awkwardly after a long silence, "it's getting to be kind of late … So, if you want to get changed and then some breakfast, we have to head over to the house in an hour or so …?" Green eyes watched violet for a few moments, and he found himself wondering how long the brunet had been standing there watching him. For some reason, he felt like it was a long while; perhaps because he didn't know Hisoka practiced kendo …? Then again, he shouldn't be surprised, since he knew that the blonde was trained in archery. (1)

A nod was the only response he gave to Tsuzuki after a bit of a pause, and he put his shinai on his shoulder, turning and starting towards the ryokan, and subsequently, his partner. "You were focusing pretty hard," Tsuzuki commented as he turned to start walking with the blond, "how long have you been out here for …?" he asked the question casually, but the tone of his voice didn't distract Hisoka from the attention that is partner was paying to him; it was focused, almost scrutinizing, as he waited for an answer. A small scowl appeared on the blond's face unbidden; did Tsuzuki think he was going to lie …?

"I don't know; what time is it?" he asked almost flippantly, not being mean, just a little aloof, which was normal. _Why does he think I'd lie to him …?_ The thought was irritated as it crossed his mind. Sitting down on the step outside of the door, he carefully removed his shoes, standing and turning to go inside a moment later.

"Um … Almost 6:00 when I came out here …?" the response told him that Tsuzuki hadn't considered that Hisoka would ask about the time; which meant he _did_ think his partner was going to just give him some arbitrary answer. Opening the door to their room, Hisoka shrugged.

"An hour or so then," was all he said, pointedly _not_ fabricating the answer in any way as he closed the door behind him, which also meant he'd closed his idiot partner outside of the room as well. There was a bit of a pause before what almost sounded like a puppy scratching it's paws on the door to be let in – before he realized that that was actually Tsuzuki, and he was probably crouched on the floor outside the door where the blond had left him.

"Hisoka~~ …" he whined, still making that pathetic pawing gesture … And for some reason, Hisoka couldn't help the small hint of a smile that crossed his face; he could perfectly envision what his partner looked like on the other side of the door without actually seeing him, and the fact that he could feel the slightly teasing, pouty-playfulness coming off of Tsuzuki wasn't helping him stay in a bad mood.

"Oh!" the blond blinked and paused mid way through pulling on a clean t-shirt, startled by the other shinigami's sudden outburst. He looked partially back over his shoulder, as though somehow he could see what his partner was doing through the door, which he could not. "There's some sunblock on the counter in the bathroom – you should use it!"

"I'll be fine," he responded as he pulled his t-shirt over his head roughly, pausing a moment to stretch a little before sitting down and pulling on his socks.

"But – you're really pale, Hisoka! What if you get a sunburn?" _Baka; Shinigami don't __**get**__ sunburned … Our healing factor cancels it out …_ he thought to himself with a mental sigh, but he didn't say anything about it – just proceeded to pretend he couldn't hear his partner on the other side of the door telling him that it would be a good idea to put it on just in case … He valiantly ignored this mothering partner, reaching behind his bag and picking up one of the bottles of water out of the case that he had picked up at the grocer the night before for himself and automatically grabbing a second for his partner, before exiting the room …

* * *

They arrived at the house, and much like the photographs they had seen in during their briefing, it looked sound enough – except for the yard work. Following Tsuzuki up the front walk, it was about the only thing that wasn't overgrown, the stones still discernible from the rest of the yard. Glancing around in disdain, Hisoka came to a halt a step or so behind his partner; he could definitely sense _something_ here … That immediately put him on edge – because whatever it was, it was _big_, that much he could tell …

"—pleased to meet you," he caught the tail end of a sentence, and shook his head slightly, bringing himself back to reality in time to bend at the waist in a bow. Awkwardly tilting his head, he tried to see who he was addressing, though the voice had been male, so he was assuming it was Ikeda Muchiro, the husband basically holding his wife captive. Politely standing a few moments after the man who was partially inside of the house, he didn't pay attention to what Tsuzuki was saying when he realized that he was talking about the work they were going to be doing there. While his partner was distracting the husband, Hisoka could see if he got any impressions from the house or what was inside.

Green eyes closed as he reached out cautiously, almost patting around inside the residence, pushing his awareness out to see if he could find anything … However, for as big as that presence was in there … It was strangely elusive – every time he tried to 'touch' it, or get anywhere near it really, it shied away, or evaded him completely … To the point that the blond was staring to get frustrated. Whatever it was, _it_ was aware of _him_, and it was skittish … Then, there was a frail presence – he was sure that it was Aneko. The best way for him to describe her presence was white, and thin; like wisps of smoke from an incense burner. It was obvious to him that she wasn't still supposed to be in this world … And yet, there she was, a few rooms back, hiding from prying eyes, though not prying minds …

"—ight, Hisoka?" Again the blond jumped, blinking rapidly; the sound of Tsuzuki's voice had startled him pretty sharply, not to mention the weight of a hand on his thankfully cloth-covered shoulder. He had been concentrating on trying to figure out what else was around, and see if he could sense any other presences besides the man before them, his wife, and whatever was in the house now, and so, he was pretty open – and it was hard for him to close off quickly. If Tsuzuki had touched his skin, it might've been bad.

"Huh?" came his rather intelligent response; he needed a second to gather himself, and he had no idea what in the world Tsuzuki had been talking about previous to asking whatever it was he was asking, so …

"I said, we'll clear out the yard today and then decide what to do when that's finished," Tsuzuki said, and as it was, his worry and curiosity were pressing down on him so hard that he was starting to get nauseated. Waving a hand at the brunet to signify that he wanted his partner to let go of him, he nodded, resisting the urge to press on the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah; that makes sense – making everything a clean slate will take at least a day or two anyway, so you'll have more time to decide what you want the finished product to look like," he said in agreement, glancing at Ikeda Muchiro. His presence in itself was a little overwhelming; he was definitely much more … _substantial_ than his wife was. To the point that it was a little over bearing – he had been ignoring it before, but now that he'd been snapped out of his concentration, he was having a hard time getting around noticing it.

Green eyes met dark brown, and he saw them narrow slightly as a wave of mistrust and suspicion hit him what felt like squarely between the eyes – he managed to stay upright though, and didn't stagger backwards, but just barely. _Geeze; what is this guy's __**problem**__?_ Hisoka thought irritably, averting his gaze and trying to make the planks of the porch beneath his feet stop moving before his eyes.

"Excellent," he said congenially before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a business card holder. Removing a couple of them, he offered them to the two Shinigami before him, explaining, "my wife's health is fragile right now, so I would appreciate it if you would call my cell phone or the office if I'm not home and you have any questions on the work." Tsuzuki agreed easily as they both pocketed the cards, acting like this wasn't out of the ordinary at all, though Hisoka could feel a vague tendril of irritation, probably because that just made their job a little more difficult. They couldn't even use the excuse that they had a question and Muchiro wasn't home so they could talk to Aneko … But they'd find a way.

Stepping out into the yard past Tsuzuki and Hisoka, he held out a hand to gesture to the tall weeds that were growing up through the gravel and what was once cedar-mulch on the grounds, saying something … But the blond wasn't paying attention. The eternally sixteen year old could swear he felt something watching him from the house, though he pretended not to notice for a few moments … Before suddenly turning, green eyes snapping in the direction the feeling was coming from – and from around the corner, he could see very long, dark hair, sickly pale skin, and one dark eye that widened slightly when it met his green … Before the figure ducked out of view.

The blond's brow furrowed before he was distracted by Tsuzuki calling him, holding up what looked like an old sickle used for harvesting wheat …

* * *

"Ironic huh? Two Shinigami using scythes …?" Tsuzuki joked about an hour after they had started. Hisoka didn't think it was funny. Breath coming in sharp little huffs, he swung the blade in his hands again, cutting down more stalks of weeds lower to the ground before waving a hand dismissively at a bee. Muchiro had told them that there was a wasp's nest around here somewhere, because quite a few of them buzzed around the yard at all times, and they weren't helping Hisoka's irritation, not unlike his partner. "Awww come on 'Soka … Admit it's funny …"

"It's not," he said between pants, shooting a glare at his partner. Tsuzuki hadn't even broken a sweat yet. _Stupid lazy partner … _the blond thought, getting more annoyed before savagely swinging the scythe in his hands again and hacking down more weeds – the good news was that they had made a sizeable dent in the grass. The bad news was that after they got them cut down low enough, they had to go over it with essentially a lawn mower, and then they had to dig it out of the ground depending on Muchiro's landscaping ideas …

"Tsuzuki," he muttered, about to reprimand his partner for not doing his fair share – but, when he turned around, he realized that his partner was actually hacking away at the tall grass and weeds, a look of determined concentration on his face. Green eyes blinked twice before he looked away from him, pausing to breathe for a moment and look up. Shielding his face with a hand, he swatted at a bee that came a little too close to him as saw that the sun had come up more quickly than he'd thought it would, and that wasn't making this any easier – it hadn't been so bad when they had started, but with the addition of the fiery orb in the sky, it was proving to get more and more difficult. Not to mention the repetitious movement, not unlike one he had already indulged in that morning, was making his arms, back, and legs ache unpleasantly.

"If you want to take a break, 'Soka," Tsuzuki started, apparently having noticed that the blond had stopped working, and green eyes immediately narrowed at him.

"I'm fine," Hisoka said, resuming his work with a scowl. He could feel his partner's surprise at his reaction, but he didn't care – he wasn't a child. He could do just as much work as anyone else.

"Oh – I just meant … … Ok; nevermind," the brunet said after a pause, defeated and turning back to the tall grass that was still in want of hacking.

"I just … This is stupid," Hisoka said after a moment, not liking the chastised feeling that was coming off of the older Shinigami standing next to him, even if he had technically been after that reaction in the first place. The new spring of confusion at the blond's words was tangible to him, and he clarified, "this isn't helping our case at all – we're just wasting time doing this …"

"Well," Tsuzuki started after a moment, resuming swinging his blade, "the idea is, we wait for him to leave; and at the same time, if we do good work, he'll start to trust us. I don't really think he does right now." Hisoka scoffed at that statement.

"Yeah; I don't either." His partner raised an eyebrow, but he didn't make any more comments, and the blond didn't offer to explain; he didn't think he needed to. But, at this rate they were getting nowhere fast; he was working hard enough that he couldn't concentrate on trying to probe around and figure out what that presence was in the house, or concentrate on anything else for that matter …

"Ouch!" the blond jumped slightly as he heard Tsuzuki exclaim, and he blinked at the taller male, who now had hand on his arm and was wincing. Raising a finely arched eyebrow at Tsuzuki, Hisoka asked,

"What?" And his tone suggested he was a little more concerned than his facial expression let on. Tsuzuki let his hand fall away from as arm, and the blond could see the beginnings of an angry red mark starting to form on his partner's skin. The violet eyed shinigami made a slight whining noise, attempting to see the newly formed blemish and having a hard time because of the angle it was at.

"Bee sting ..." he said mournfully, and Hisoka rolled his eyes before resuming work; he had actually been concerned for a moment. One bee sting wasn't anything to be worried about though, especially when it was a Shinigami that had been stung ...

Glancing over his shoulder towards the house as he paused between slashes, ignoring Tsuzuki's vocalizations of the pain from his minor injury, Hisoka's brow furrowed again – the curtain moved, as if someone had just been holding it open, and quickly let go when they saw him turn around …

* * *

"Come on, 'Sokaaaaa …"It was about noon when they finally finished hacking down the grass and weeds enough that they could cut them normally and Tsuzuki declared that he wanted lunch, because all of this work was making him hungry. _How can he even __**think**__ about food …? _ The blond thought almost incredulously; he was so hot and his throat was so parched he couldn't even _think_ about putting something into his system without gagging.

"I'm not hungry," he snapped at his partner's insistence that they stop. He just wanted to get this _over _with so they could do some actual _investigating_. However, suddenly the sickle in his hands was grabbed and dragged away from him, and slightly hazy green eyes narrowed in a glare at his partner … But Tsuzuki wasn't budging. He knew that expression, and that feeling coming off of him; he was resolved, and arguing with him was only going to start a fight, because he was going to dig his heels in until he got what he wanted. Sighing, he didn't say anything; he just rolled his eyes, deftly moving away from another wasp that was suddenly near to his face, the loud buzzing annoying him, before he moved to follow his partner, who immediately clapped his hands together after setting the blond's sickle down, excited that they were going to eat. Or that he had won without a scrimmage. Hisoka honestly wasn't sure.

The sixteen year old walked in silence to the restaurant, ignoring Tsuzuki's inane chatter as they went; he wasn't feeling well, which probably had something to do with the fact that his hair was plastered to his face with sweat, and he'd only had the one bottle of water he'd brought with him to drink in the past five hours. However, they made it to the establishment that his partner was leading them to without mishap and were seated a few minutes later. Sipping the glass of water that the bus boy put on the table in front of him, his tongue curled around an ice cube that might as well have been frozen ambrosia it was so delicious, and he couldn't help sighing in the back of his throat.

Glancing out the window, he didn't listen when Tsuzuki started rambling about what looked good on the menu. Absently, he watched someone ride by on a bicycle, and his thoughts wandered back to that presence he felt in the house. He couldn't place what it was exactly – the only words he could use to describe it were 'a lot' and 'big', and that wasn't exactly the most eloquent way to put it.

"—soka, are you listening?" Tsuzuki's voice caught his attention as there was a sudden pressure on his hand, which made him withdraw it quickly with a hiss. He realized a moment later that it was just his partner taking his hand, and violet eyes blinked at him in confusion. Honestly, Hisoka was confused too; why had that hurt so much …?

After a few moments of scrutiny, Tsuzuki's eyes widened a little and he reported quietly, "I … didn't notice before but … 'Soka … I think you're starting to get a sunburn …" Green eyes flickered down to the back of his hand, which he was holding with his other hand and … Sure enough, the milky skin on the palm of one hand was nowhere near as pink as the skin on the back of the other. Scowling at the table in front of him, he waited for his partner to say something along the lines of 'I told you so' or 'see?' but … Well, after a long pause nothing came. The scowl softened slightly with his confusion, and he glanced up cautiously at his partner, who wasn't looking at him …

"So, have you decided what you want?" green eyes flickered over towards the waitress he hadn't noticed, and he turned to look back out the window, his untouched menu still sitting on the end of the table where it had been placed when they were seated.

"I think I'll have the nikujaga, and my friend will have the shimabara nabe," (2) the seventy-year Shinigami said, smiling at the waitress and handing her his menu. She bowed and started off as Hisoka stared at Tsuzuki.

"Wait no –I … Dammit Tsuzuki," he said in annoyance as the waitress left, "I told you; I'm not hungry." He gave his partner a pointed look, and the brunette just grinned at him immodestly, shrugging his shoulders.

"…'Soka, you can't go all day working like this and not eat something – whether you're hungry or not, you need to eat—"

"I don't need you coddling me all the time, Tsuzuki - I'm _not_ a little ki—"

"I never said you were." Hisoka paused as his partner interrupted him, shooting him a sideways glance; Tsuzuki had a slightly serious look on his face that sobered the blond's temper a bit … "And anyway; I wanted to ask you – you noticed something about the house; what was it?"

"There's something inside it," was all the green eyed Shinigami said at first, unsure of how to word his response to convey what he had felt. "I don't know what … But whatever it is, it's _big_."

"Powerful? Do you think it's a demon, or …?" Anxious, worry, suspense … He put up a solid wall between himself and the outside, including his partner; he didn't need to be any more overwhelmed.

"I don't know," he responded a moment later pensively, "I can't tell; whatever it is it's weirdly … Neutral. It's not malicious, or benevolent … It's just _there_ … And it seems like no matter what I do, I can't get close enough to it to figure out what it is …" The brunet paused contemplatively for a moment, and Hisoka thought that his partner was going to say something uncharacteristically profound, so he waited patiently to see what it would be.

"Hmm …" Tsuzuki started, "that's strange." He finished the sentence so intelligently that a pair of green eyes rolled in response; of _course_ it was strange – or else he wouldn't have mentioned it. More thinking ensued before eventually he did actually seem to come up with something – however, whatever it was it had to wait until after he was served; apparently what Tsuzuki had ordered for himself and Hisoka was in such high demand that they had it already made up, because that hadn't taken very long. As soon as the waitress set the food in front of the older shinigami, he started digging in – and Hisoka just watched him. Which he noticed eventually, because he paused to blink at the blond before he seemed to remember that he had been about to say something before he was given food and thus distracted from life, the universe, and everything. So, to remedy this as well as not lose any time eating, he made some string of garbled noises that were probably supposed to be words through a mouthful of his stew, to which the blond only raised an eyebrow because he hadn't any idea what Tsuzuki had said. The gesture was apparently understood, because the brunet finished his mouthful before trying again.

"What if you went to question those girls? The other ones that were supposed to have passed away?" Hisoka's brow furrowed – the two of them were supposed to do that together after they finished working that afternoon … Suspicious, since it was his partner that had first insisted they do it together, the blond prodded at Tsuzuki subtly. But Tsuzuki had a wall up, so the most he got was an echo of questioning whether or not Hisoka thought that was a good plan. Sighing, he sat back in his chair.

"Why would I do that? There's still work to be done at the house." He answered finally, sounding bored and having an equally uninspired expression on his face, complete with a raised eyebrow.

"Well," his partner started, swallowing again, "there really isn't any hurry to get _everything_ done today – but we also can't blow off working this afternoon either, so one of us has to go back to work … It would make more sense for the other one to see what information we can get out of the survivors," he explained, watching Hisoka's face, "half the time, twice the work, right?"

"You just don't want me to work anymore today," Hisoka said slowly after a few moments as the realization dawned on him. "You don't think I can handle it!" Violet eyes widened, and he could feel Tsuzuki backpedaling behind that wall and starting to protest, but the blond had already seen through it.

"Oh no? Am I wrong? Fine – _you_ go talk to those other six girls; _I'll_ go back to work. You're better at talking to people anyway!" Ironically, he hadn't meant to yell the last part, but his voice had just naturally escalated as he started to lose his temper. Throwing up a stronger shield haphazardly when he felt the other customers in the restaurant staring at him, he stood sharply, nearly overturning his chair in the process. Ignoring Tsuzuki's attempt at an explanation, he fairly stormed out of the eating establishment, plate of food untouched, as promised…

* * *

Hisoka hadn't cooled down on the walk back to the house, even though he'd travelled on foot the entire way. That only served to fuel his work ethic as he pushed the cheaply rented walk behind lawn mower over the now much shorter grass and weeds, hacking it down to a much more normal height in preparation for their next set of tasks. Tatsumi hadn't even seen fit to rent a lawn mower with an actual _motor_ in it; this was a metal cage on a handle that contained spinning blades that rotated as you pushed it . In all fairness, he had probably assumed that Tsuzuki would be the one using it – but that wasn't what ended up happening. No – he had ended up losing his temper because Tsuzuki was worried about him, and now he was stubbornly forcing his body into hard manual labor instead of finding Tsuzuki and apologizing to him.

After a full two hours of fighting with the old fashioned mower, he was fairly exhausted, and sighing heavily, Hisoka let go of the older-than-dirt contraption, sinking down at the base of a gnarled old pine tree, which offered him some shade. Apparently fatigue was good for calming down, because now instead of burning with anger he just felt like he was floating in a calm sea of guilt for yelling at Tsuzuki. He had been under the distinct impression that Shinigami couldn't get sunburned, hence his earlier comment, and ignoring his partner's suggestion to use the sunscreen … But evidently he had been wrong; his skin was now an angrier shade of pinkish-red than it had been at lunch, and it was starting to ache. He hadn't been aware that _skin _could ache.

Leaning back against the tree, he allowed his eyes to drift upwards, and saw where the source of the wasps must have been - there was a pretty good sized nest from what he could see nestled in the branches of the tree he was sitting under. Allowing his eyes close, as he wasn't worried about bees in the slightest, Hisoka attempted to slow his erratic heartbeat and sharp, ragged breaths. The mower had gotten stuck several times, and he had had to bodily remove it from whatever it was tangled in, take the grass and weeds that were stuck in it out, and then go back to what he was doing. At this point he just needed to rest for a few minutes – that was all …

How she managed to sneak up on him, he'd never know; he hadn't been sleeping, or even dozing really, but after he had sat under that tree for a while, he suddenly felt like there was someone nearby. Slowly opening one eye, he resisted the urge to jump at the sickly white face that was only a few short feet away from him. Opening the other eye, he sat up straighter, and the quick movement seemed to cow her substantially because she flinched a little and turned her slightly gaunt face away from him, hiding behind a waterfall of thin, dark hair.

"Ah, sorry," he muttered, feeling awkward, "I was just … resting …" She didn't say anything – she was very timid, and nervous, almost as if she was afraid she was doing something wrong, and Hisoka could feel it. It was making his stomach stir with fabricated butterflies, and that was just making him queasy … And it probably didn't help that he could feel that overbearing neutral presence either, though he wasn't sure where it was originating from … Hisoka was about to say something else when one of her slim hands made a gesture that drew his attention to a little tray that was sitting near him, which he hadn't noticed before. It held a full pitcher of what looked like cold barley tea on it accompanied by a glass of the same stuff. Blinking stupidly, he glanced up at her, but she was looking away again, and she had set her hand down. Reaching out towards it, he picked up the cool glass and took a sip – and apparently hadn't realized how thirsty he was as he downed the glass surprisingly quickly.

"Thank you," he said quietly, panting a little with how fast he had drank the tea – it was probably the most delicious thing he'd ever ingested in all of his life. She just shook her head, and he got a sense of shyness from her mixed in with her nervousness. Hisoka was at a loss for what to say as they sat there in silence – he was completely caught off guard by this encounter, not to mention not being able to pinpoint where that presence was coming from, and though he had known what questions he needed to ask her that morning, for some reason he couldn't remember how to speak.

"He says … I should talk to you …" her voice was raspy – thin and frail, much like her body, and again Hisoka was reminded of wisps of white smoke as he watched her for a long moment. Brow furrowing slightly, he asked the only question he could think of at the moment.

"Who does …?" he couldn't imagine that she was talking about her husband; the man seemed like he would prefer to be her sole liaison to the outside world until his dying breath, and he hadn't seemed to place too much trust in he or his partner. He had an inkling of what she was talking about, but for the moment he wanted to pretend that he didn't, to see what she did. Carefully he reached out a little bit, trying to figure out what she was thinking – he didn't usually like to open up enough to read people's minds. It tended to leave him too vulnerable for his own liking, and with that presence around, he didn't think he could be too careful. She opened her mouth to say something, but paused, a sharp cough wracking her body for a few moments and stopping her from answering immediately. Afterwards, she didn't move to say anything, so Hisoka pressed on.

"Is it true … That you were diagnosed with sFI?" (3) he asked this sort of bluntly, but he wasn't sure where her husband was, and so, he didn't know how long he'd have to question her before he was interrupted. "And that, you are being … healed …?" the continuation of his question was cautious – she herself had claimed that it was an angel that was healing her in the report, but he didn't know if she'd be so willing to divulge that information to a stranger …

Surprisingly, she nodded slowly. "Yes … I was supposed to die …" she answered, clearing her throat weakly. "But I was saved." Hisoka's eyes narrowed a little.

"Saved? But isn't there no cure …?" he asked, playing dumb for the moment – he wanted to see what she would tell him without prompting, and what he would have to drag out of her. There was a pause, and then, she turned towards him, face hidden by her dark hair for the most part, sunken black eyes staring at him intently as she thought.

"There is no cure offered by humans," she said in her weak, smoke-like voice, "my cure did not come from them. My cure came from—"

"What are you doing outside!" the sudden crack of the loud voice made Hisoka jump nearly a mile; he had been so intently scrutinizing the woman before him that he hadn't noticed her husband coming around the corner and seeing her talking to him. He approached quickly, almost like a whirlwind, saying nothing to the blond, but picking his wife up without another word and bringing her back inside the house before any argument could be made to the contrary.

Before she was made to leave however, she managed to hold something out to the blond, wiry fingers pressing it into the palm of his hand and closing it before obediently allowing herself to be carried into the house by her husband – this seemed to be something she was accustomed to because she wasn't upset or even really surprised at being carried away. Hisoka didn't notice this though; he was still in shock from when she had touched him. He had still been openly receptive, and her hand had touched him … It had made his skin crawl – it was like touching a corpse … A corpse that you could tell might stand up and laugh at any moment. Shivering, his flesh felt clammy, and he moved to bring his hand up to see what exactly it was that she had left him. Eyes narrowing, he couldn't exactly see what it was – it almost looked like a n—

"Ouch," he hissed as he opened the hand that the small object was in, wincing slightly. Yeah; it was a needle, and it had just cut his finger open. Sucking on the tip of the injured digit for a moment, his healing ability took care of that almost immediately, and there was no indication of the puncture a second later. Looking at the needle now carefully curled between his fingers, he looked painstakingly at it … But no matter which way he turned it, it just looked like an ordinary sewing needle to him. After scrutinizing it for a long time, he eventually looked around for the water bottle he had long since drained, opening the top of it and dropping the needle inside before replacing the cap so that it wouldn't prick him again or get lost, setting it down at the roots of the pine tree before standing and going back to work …

**Tsu zu ku**

**(To be Continued)**

Footnotes:

1 – in the manga during the office's competition, Hisoka is entered in the archery contest for his division, and as archery and kendo are both traditional practices in Japan, they could be linked like this.

2 – basically nikujaga is a beef stew, and shimabara nabe is more like a lighter chicken soup.

3 – sFI is Sporadic Fatal Insomnia, a very rare disease that is almost always fatal, and basically drives the person suffering from it insane as they slowly develop dementia from inability to sleep and waste away.


	3. Tomino's Hell

A/N: I don't usually write author's notes, but I'm so excited – I got my first review on this fic! Thank you so much to **lamiabeauty** – and to everyone else who is **reading and favoriting/alerting** this story. It's how I know people are interested and I'm not just writing to entertain myself … Reviews really are the best motivator; whether it's just a 'hey I like this' or if you have some comments/criticism about my writing, please just take a second to click the button at the end of the chapter … It really does motivate me to post more/faster!

**DISCLAIMER: In this chapter I am going to reproduce a poem called "Tomino no Jigoku" (Tomino's Hell); it is alright to read it in your head, but under no circumstance should you EVER read it aloud. It is said in Japan that if you read the whole poem out loud it will result in EXTREME bad luck, up to and including death. I am only writing out the full text here because it is important to this fan fiction. So please, just enjoy it in your mind, and do not read it out loud.**

**Tomino no Jigoku**

"So, they didn't tell you anything?" Hisoka clarified, managing to keep his voice even so that the annoyance didn't show through. Tsuzuki had stayed away from him for the rest of the afternoon; Hisoka had finished cutting the grass and had proceeded to put the tools they had rented away in an old shed in the back of the house's yard, which they had revealed while attempting to wrangle in the grass and weeds. The first he'd seen of his partner was after he'd taken a long walk around town, staring at the water bottle in his hands, which was empty except for that oddly mundane needle that Aneko had given him. Eventually he'd stopped at the grocery store in town to pick up some more things – they didn't have much of a kitchen in the place they were staying in, but the only restaurant in town was the one they had eaten lunch at, and it was a little on the expensive side without a very extensive menu.

He'd then walked the long way back to the ryokan, making his way inside and pausing at the door, surprised to see Tsuzuki sitting on the floor next to the plain kotatsu that was positioned to one side of the room. He wasn't sure _why_ exactly he was surprised – just, for some reason he hadn't expected Tsuzuki to be there when he got back, even though the sun was setting.

Walking inside, he hadn't wanted to talk to his partner at all really; he was exhausted, and he just wanted to put what he'd gotten at the store in the tiny mini-fridge, and then go to bed – preferably without a heavy blanket, because the thought of anything even _touching_ his burnt skin made him wince. However, a job was a job – he needed to know what Tsuzuki had found out, and his partner needed to know what Aneko had said to him. Unfortunately, what the brunet of the two had to report was maddeningly unhelpful to their situation at best.

"No," his partner said, shaking his head sadly, "or at the very least, they didn't tell me much …" The blond sighed as he closed the refrigerator, opening the new bottle of water in his hand and sitting down across the table from the violet eyed shinigami. Spread across the surface of it were the contents of the case file on top of some of the books the Gushoshin had sent them with about gardening techniques, and in the middle of the fray was the laptop, which his partner had been distractedly typing away on. The blond took a drink from the bottle and said,

"But they said something to you? Anything's better than nothing, Tsuzuki." At first his partner didn't answer him; clearly he was searching for something very diligently, and the green eyed teenager absently moved a few of the photographs of mangled corpses that were in front of him around as he waited for the brunet to finish what he was doing.

"Yeah," the brunet eventually relented, looking up from the laptop, "but I'm having a hard time making any sense of it." Reaching down and pushing some of the skewed papers out of the way, he eventually pulled out the small pad of paper he sometimes took when asking people questions and flipped through it, looking for whatever it was that he'd made a note of earlier.

"They were all really nice and tried to be helpful, but all they basically said was that they were all sick from some the onset of some kind of illness, which we already knew, and then … They got really evasive when I asked how they were cured, since even though they were all different sicknesses, they are all 'incurable'." The older shinigami reached up and absently rubbed the back of his neck with a small sigh. "Eventually, at one point or another they all mentioned something about a poem, but it was always really vague. The only thing I really caught about it was that it had something to do with needles …" At that, Hisoka paused.

"Needles?" At the sudden inquiry Tsuzuki stopped, giving his partner his full attention because apparently the word meant something to Hisoka. "Needles … like this one?" the blond asked, picking up the empty water bottle he had next to him and shaking it slightly – when the small piece of metal moved around inside of it, it caught the light and glinted a little. At the brunet's questioning look, Hisoka continued,

"Aneko came outside this afternoon while you weren't there; I don't know what her husband was doing, but she apparently got away from him and … brought me some tea." He didn't mention the part about how he had been sitting underneath a pine tree trying not to fall asleep. "I think she was going to tell me something – or at least, that she was trying to tell me something – but she was interrupted when her husband came out and made her go back inside …" Tsuzuki's face fell at this part of the story; clearly he had been hoping that Hisoka had gotten some sort of relevant information out of her that would help further their investigation; however, not to be discouraged, the blond continued.

"She was telling me that her disease was incurable for humans, but her cure hadn't come from them – and then her husband came and she didn't get to say anything else … But, before he took her inside, she put this in my hand," he held up the empty bottle once more, this time setting it on one of the rare empty spaces on the table that was between them. "I'm assuming she was talking about that 'angel' she claims is healing her, which I expected, but I don't know what this needle has to do with it. And the problem is, no matter what way I look at the thing, it just seems like a regular needle to me; there isn't any strange residue on it that I can feel that makes it seem like it's cursed or anything … "Violet eyes narrowed thoughtfully as his partner picked up the empty bottle and looked at the small piece of metal inside it, head turning to the side slightly, and then the other way as he brought his other hand up to his chin, rubbing at it slightly with his fingers.

"Hmmm … Well, I've been looking around since I got back from questioning the other six girls," he said, gesturing to the laptop that was sitting in front of him, "for any sort of poem or incantation that has to do with needles … But so far I'm coming up pretty much on empty; the only things I've found so far are an extremely vague connection to fox-spirits that seems unlikely at best, and Yubikiri." (1) Hisoka raised an eyebrow skeptically; anything was possible, but Yubikiri was such a common rhyme it didn't make sense that it was only affecting a few scattered, sick, older-than-school-aged women in one town in the Nagasaki prefecture.

"But I doubt it's either of those." Hisoka nodded in agreement; placing an elbow on the table and setting his head on the knuckles of his hand, he looked at the bottle Tsuzuki was holding along with the needle inside of it. It really just looked like a normal sewing instrument to him – nothing special. It had felt like a piece of metal when he'd touched it – again, normal, with little tiny hints of emotions attached to it from encounters, but nothing particularly strong or concerning… Nothing stood out about it – but he knew there had to be _something_ …

"Hijiri!" Hisoka's head snapped upwards, completely disorienting him to the point that he nearly fell over and out of his cross-legged position. Blinking, he took a second to realize what his partner had said, apparently having been on the verge of nodding off; registering the name, the blond's scowl deepened unconsciously. What did Minase Hijiri have to do with this case? Why was Tsuzuki thinking about him? Looking at his partner, his displeasure must've shown in his expression, however it was misinterpreted by his partner.

"Ah; gomen 'Soka … I didn't realize you were sleeping…"

"I wasn't sleeping you idiot," he muttered, though his voice was sluggish and lacked venom. "What about Minase-kun?" He forced his voice to sound bored and disinterested when he asked the second part. For a moment Tsuzuki seemed to have forgotten what he was thinking about, and blinked twice before answering,

"Oh; well, I was just thinking," he lightly put a finger to his lips and glanced somewhere up at the ceiling as he mused to himself, "during that case, Watari was able to find information on his cornea by zooming into it and enlarging the image … Maybe there's something he could pick up on this needle that we can't see just by looking at it?" Pausing, Hisoka's expression softened as it turned thoughtful, and he slowly nodded, understanding now where his partner was coming from.

"That makes sense – we should take it to him …" he said, sitting up and stretching a little, wincing as his neck let him know that it didn't appreciate the motion. Tsuzuki reached forward and closed the laptop in front of him, glancing at the bottle that was still in Hisoka's hand.

"We don't both need to bring it to him – it's not like we'll be able to help him use his crazy machinery anyway," he said with a smile before asking, "you want to do it?" And then, after a thoughtful pause, "… I already took a bath though – maybe you should do the same while I take it …?" the green eyed teenager paused, considering for a moment before nodding – he supposed that made sense. And he really did want to get clean; after all that work he couldn't say that he felt anything but … grungy.

"Alright," he slowly stood, bending to set the water bottle with the needle in it on the table, "take it to Watari – but if you're not back by morning to help me work, I'm coming after you …" Hisoka's tone had a dark hint of warning in it, but only slightly, and he wasn't serious anyway – he suspected that if Watari was going to find something, he would find it immediately or not at all. So he didn't think Tsuzuki would be gone for long – probably just long enough for him to get a bath in, though it would be difficult to obtain and subsequently maintain a good temperature with no one to stoke the fire outside for him.

Going their separate ways, the brunet took the bottle, translocating to the Juohcho in order to ask for Watari's help while Hisoka, after finishing his water, removed his dirty clothes, washing his body and hair diligently to get rid of all the sweat and grass and dirt that was likely sticking to him. It hurt, scrubbing the parts of his arms that were now peeling – accelerated healing meant that since he had managed to get any semblance of an actual sunburn, it would go through the motions that would lead to healed skin a lot faster; most likely by morning it would be as if he hadn't been burned at all. Small blessings, he supposed; at least it would only be a vague irritation for a short period of time. Shivering as he went outside to start the fire that would heat his bath water, he sat and built it up for quite a while, knowing that if he didn't he was going to have to deal with cold water sooner than he would have liked. Though, as a consequence for stoking up a good blaze, the water nearly burned him when he finally did go inside to soak for a while …

As soon as his body got used to the high temperature, it started to taper off and become less intense, until eventually the liquid felt cool to him even though it was still warm to the touch when he reintroduced his hand to test it … Making matters worse was the fact that the hot water and steam was making him feel a little light headed … The end result was that he didn't end up staying in the water for very long. Eventually, when he was fed up enough, he drained the tub and put out the embers that were left of the fire, finding it strange that Tsuzuki still wasn't back from Juohcho, even though he'd managed to endure the fluctuating temperature for the best part of an hour. _Maybe Watari is busy with something, and he's waiting …_ he thought to himself as he went into the room they were staying in, damp hair making him shiver slightly as a breeze drifted in from the window while he toweled his hair off. Shivering again, he reached out to close the window when he got within range of it, glancing outside absently at the darkening night. It was just after sunset, not particularly late in the evening, but the blond could feel his eyelids sag; not that he would admit it out loud, but … he was pretty exhausted. His body ached, his feet hurt, his eyes stung … Not to mention the annoying itching burn of his skin …

After some debate that was mostly won by his head drooping and jerking back upward several times while he tried to look at the case files scattered across the table, Hisoka mechanically picked up and organized the papers and put them back where they belonged in their manila folder, setting it on top of the laptop. Then, he retrieved the blankets that made up his bed from the tiny closet and moved back across the room, kneeling down where his futon would eventually be set up. Moving the dressings for his bed into place on the tatami mats, he crawled into them and turned onto his side.

* * *

_I can't see anything … Why is it so dark here …? Why can't I move …?_

"_Tomino's Hell …" My mind struggles to move my body, but I am frozen … However, before panic can set in, there is a sudden movement that ensnares my attention in this stark blackness – it is a flash of red light, and in the middle of it is a gaunt, wiry white figure in a red yukata. (2)_

"_The older sister throws up blood …" A strange statement, and I was about to try and question what I was hearing, but then, the figure looks to be violently ill – and, almost like some sort of play, rather than blood coming from her mouth, it almost looks like a red scarf was thrown forward from her. It was around then I realized that it was like I was watching a puppet show, invisible strings holding the joints and sections of the life-sized doll in front of me. _

"_The younger sister is sick with fire." Another form appears, across from the first one, smaller than her, making the same violent retching motions and throwing a long transparent scarf out that fades from yellow to orange to red._

"_Precious Tomino breathes pearls." The first two figures disappear, and a third one is there, in the middle, glowing white. I can't see this one's face – but suddenly there are hundreds of gleaming pearls falling from her outstretched hand like strange, opalescent stars against the black backdrop. _

"_Alone, Tomino fell into hell." Suddenly, I see this faceless form falling like the pearls from her hand, her puppet-mouth opening wide and her terrified screams stinging my ears. "A hell so dark that no flowers can bloom." Then there is blank darkness; and for a while there is nothing –a stifling amount of nothing … I can't feel anything, I can't see anything, I can't taste, hear, or smell … But I'm still aware of myself … _

_This torturous stillness drags on for what seems like forever, and I can't move – there is nothing I can do except remain where I am …_

"_Is that Tomino's Older Sister with the whip?" the sudden crack of the loud voice startles me, and that seems familiar, somehow – and then I feel the pain in my back, against my flesh; I hear the crack of a whip. "The number of red marks are worrisome … Whipping and Beating and Hitting …" At this, I can feel a familiar burn on my skin as the rhythmic blows rain down on my back, and I don't need to look to be told that the red lines of the curse branded into my flesh are glowing and burning … At each bite of the whip into my skin, I swallow what would be a scream, choking on the sound – the blood rolls down my back, and I feel my hands curl into fists to help me endure the pain, even though I am far from controlling what my body is doing … _

"_There is only one path into hell ... You must beg for guidance into the darkness of hell …" And suddenly, I'm falling; the bottom of my stomach shoots up into my chest, and this time I feel my body lurching downwards, into that all-consuming darkness, the air stuck in my lungs so that I couldn't scream if I wanted to. "From the golden ram and the nightingale – how much is left inside the leather bag?" The pearls from earlier are there when I stop falling, spilling across the floor I can't see from an overturned leather satchel that has a golden buckle in the shape of a ram. It was knocked over by a small, pastel colored bird that opens it's beak and sings, but makes no sound. "Prepare for the journey into the endless hell …" that third, faceless figure from earlier picks up the overturned satchel, grasping the tiny nightingale roughly in one hand so that it can't escape …_

"_Spring comes into the woods and the valley; seven turns inside the black valley of hell." And then, the faceless figure begins to walk, and I can't take my eyes away from her – her plain yukata is neat and in order, and she walks with a purpose into the darkness, on a journey to somewhere that I know she'll never get to – and so does she._

"_Inside a cage is the nightingale, inside a cart is the sheep … And inside precious Tomino's eyes are tears." The small, pastel colored bird is in a cage that is much too small for it, and it flutters around helplessly and frantically, trying to escape, but unable to find a route. The third, faceless figure has fallen to her knees, and pearls fall from the face that she doesn't have; the leather bag is on the ground next to her now, completely empty … _

"_Cry nightingale, through the rain in the forest; cry for the love of your little sister." I hear the shrill scream if a small, frightened bird as I see the wiry woman in the red yukata. She is bent over the smaller girl in the same yukata, shoulders shaking – though I couldn't hear anything but the desperate cries of the bird, I knew she was crying bitterly for the loss of the child …_

"_The echoes of your screams howl throughout hell as the blood-red flower is torn open." The sounds stop, and a strange red light fills the space, erasing the woman and the child, and at first I don't understand what is happening … but it is simple to figure out when I see the pregnant moon the sky, soaked in innocent blood … _

_Pain; ripping, tearing, seizing **pain**, more intimate and terrible than any pain I had felt before, and any pain I have felt since … Disgusting, twisted pleasure invading my mind; choking me as I try to escape from those deranged feelings … I am truly powerless to stop the desecration of my flesh – the horrible corruption of my soul as the white demon claims what he has decided will be his … And places the spell upon me that will end my life after I have suffered for an eternity … His thoughts and feelings, fleeting and methodically organized in their chaos – there is too much for me to focus on, but then, that's how it always is … I am paralyzed by my own abilities as he wrestles me to the ground, and holds me down … _

_It feels like this scene from the twisted play I have been forced to participate in never ends … _

"_Through the seven mountains and valleys of hell, precious Tomino travels alone." Once I am left alone, my abused body still not responding to any command I gave it, I eventually look up, and I saw that faceless figure again, wearing her plain yukata, now ragged and worn, still walking through the darkness alone, the geta clicking on the ground I can't see … The faceless person looks exhausted, about to collapse, but keeps stumbling on anyway…_

"_To welcome you into hell, the glimmering spikes of the Great Needle Mountains pierce fresh red holes in the flesh … And that gives Tomino the sign." I feel my body falling, and all I can see is that faceless figure, her short dark hair covering where her face should have been … And for the first time, this figure has lips – lips that slowly spread into a smile as I fall down … down … down … Fall onto a bed of glowing red iron needles; they pierce through every inch of my body and it is all I can do to scream for the pain …_

* * *

"HISOKA!" Hisoka heard himself scream as he sat up quickly, panting desperately, hands clawing at something he couldn't identify that was holding him down. Looking around without seeing, he was completely disoriented;he couldn't move, and that only served to agitate him more as he struggled to free himself from whatever was holding him captive. "Hisoka - calm down. Hisoka - Hisoka!" Eventually he tired himself enough that he couldn't struggle any more, ceasing his movement and just panting. Unfocused green eyes slowly settled on the face of the person that was holding him down, and slowly blinked as the mind behind them tried to process what was happening.

"Tsu … zu … ki …?" his voice was quiet and parched, and not comprehending what was happening, or so it seemed. The hands on his shoulders relaxed, and his partner let out the breath he had been holding, visibly slackening and relaxing. Hisoka just stared at the older shinigami that was crouched over him as he slowly sat back, completely letting go of the blond's shoulders. However, the reprieve was short-lived; a moment later, Tsuzuki had dragged him up and crushed him against his chest in a hug that threatened not only to cut off his air-supply, but also his circulation.

"Ah; Tsu… Tsuzuki! What are you doing?" he managed in a strained voice, squirming against the brunet and trying to escape; his skin was still tender from that sunburn, and the added stimulus to it wasn't comfortable. It was a quickly failing effort though, as it didn't look like his partner was going to be relinquishing him any time soon. The blond was too disoriented still to focus enough on keeping his partner out; and because of their proximity he was fairly drowning in genuine worry and upset, which eventually made his struggles slow as he became more overwhelmed and a bit nauseated.

"O.. Oi," he said quietly after he had paused for a moment and realized what he was feeling from the older Shinigami, tugging hesitantly on his partner's arm, "Tsuzuki … What's wrong …?" Hisoka tried to keep his tone neutral, but there was a tiny hint of worry in it as he tried to swivel slightly so he could see his partner's face – but Tsuzuki apparently wasn't having that, because Hisoka couldn't budge him even that much. Eventually, after what seemed like a long time, the younger shinigami let out a breath, relaxing a little against his partner's chest – the anxiety seemed to have died down on Tsuzuki's end, at least, though the agitated concern continued to make his head swim … And he still didn't know what was going on …

"You were having a nightmare …" Tsuzuki eventually murmured, "and you wouldn't wake up …" There was a pause while Hisoka processed what he had heard, and then tried to comprehend what he was being told …

"I … was …?" That couldn't be right; he didn't remember having a nightmare – and those usually branded themselves bright and clear in his memory. Another long pause followed as he tried to think back to what he had been dreaming about before he'd been shaken awake, but unlike most times when he woke and was upset, he couldn't recall anything at all … The last thing he could definitively remember was laying out his futon and getting into bed because he was too tired to wait up for Tsuzuki. "I … are you sure?"

"You were screaming … and you wouldn't stop …" Tsuzuki responded immediately and his tone left no room for argument or reasoning. He sounded tired – exhausted, even – and the blond instantly felt bad for worrying his partner … Especially because he couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about … Slowly, he reached up, putting his arms around the brunet and lightly rubbing his back a little; this seemed to calm the violet eyed shinigami a bit more, because eventually he loosed his grip and pulled away until he was about arm's reach from the blond – but he stubbornly refused to let go of the smaller Shinigami any more than that. It was then that he searched Hisoka's face for what felt like a long time to the boy, before eventually coming to the conclusion, "you don't remember what you were dreaming about." Hisoka's utter confusion must've been showing on his face.

"No …" he responded sort of quietly, not sure what else to say; normally he'd probably be indignant and tell Tsuzuki to stop being stupid, and not to worry about him so much, but … His partner was so genuinely afraid that something was wrong – and so deeply upset … For whatever reason, Hisoka couldn't bring himself to act like he didn't notice …

"You were saying this … Weird poetry … In your sleep …" Green eyes blinked up at his partner when he was handed this little tidbit of information; it wasn't helping to clear up his confusion any. Maybe that was why Tsuzuki was so worried; did he think Hisoka was possessed or something?

"Poetry …?" was all he could manage though, desperately trying to recall what had been going on behind his closed eyelids … And coming up on empty. Shaking his head slightly, he qualified his confusion with, "what do you mean, 'weird poetry' …?"

"Yeah … You, uh, talk in your sleep sometimes … Here …" One of Tsuzuki's hands left Hisoka's arm as he bent slightly to the side, reaching for and retrieving the familiar pad of paper that he normally jotted notes in when investigating a case. In his messy scrawl were short lines that indeed seemed to make up a strange sort of poem, and, brow furrowing, Hisoka slowly read what it was Tsuzuki had transcribed. (3)

_Tomino no Jigoku_

_Ane wa chi o haku, imouto wa hi haku. _

_Kawaii Tomino wa tama o haku. _

_Hitori, jigoku ni ochiyuku Tomino. _

_Jigoku, kurayami hana mo naki. _

_Muchi de tataku o Tomino no ane ka. _

_Muchi no shubusa ga ki ni kakaru._

_Tatake yatataki yare tataka zutto temo._

_Mugen jigoku wa hitotsu michi_

_Kurai jigoku e anai o tanomu_

_Kane no hitsu ni, uguisu ni_

_Kawa no fukuro niya ikura hodo ire yo_

_Mugen Jigoku no tabi shitaku_

_Haru ga kite soru hayashite ni tani ni_

_Kurai jigoku tani na namagari_

_Kago ni uguisu, kuruma ni yahitsuji_

_Kawaii Tomino no me ni ya namida_

_Nakeyo uguisu hayashi no ame ni_

_Imouto koishi to koe ga giri_

_Nakeba kodama ga jigoku ni hibiki_

_Kitsune botan no hana ga saku_

_Jigoku nana yama nana tani meguru_

_Kawaii Tomino no hitori tabi_

_Jigoku gozarabamo de kite tamore_

_Hari no oyama no tomebari o_

_Akai tome hari date niwa sasanu_

_Kawaii Tomino no mejirushi ni._

"After you said the last line … You started screaming and moving around violently …" his partner said quietly, "I don't know if there was supposed to be more or not, but …" Tsuzuki trailed off and Hisoka heard an unsaid, '_I didn't want to wait and find out_'… However, this left Hisoka with more questions than it answered – why couldn't he remember something that had left him screaming like he was being dismembered? And –

"And you don't remember any of it …?" Tsuzuki sounded, not surprised, but almost frustrated – and honestly, Hisoka couldn't understand it himself. He was plagued with unpleasant memories and dreams all the time; he had never had difficulty recalling them before… So why all of a sudden were his powers of recollection so apparently out of whack now …? It made no sense to him – and to top it off, his body seemed to want to break pattern as well; instead of being extremely awake, now that he'd had a supposed nightmare, he was actually tired … He could feel his eyelids drooping, and he had to stifle a yawn before he asked his next question.

"Did you give Watari the needle? Did he find anything …?" It was Tsuzuki's turn to be disoriented for a few moments while he recalibrated and tried to figure out what Hisoka was talking about. But it seemed he figured it out after little difficulty, because he shook his head.

"Not exactly … He thinks he might've found something … 'Or else it's wistful thinking' is what he said … But either way he kept it so he could study it some more and sent me back here," the brunet explained thoughtfully, "he said he'd call if he found out anything about the needle." Hisoka nodded in response, though he was confused – normally, Watari was pretty quick to find something if there was something to be found; decoding some sort of encryption was a different story of course, but … He wasn't even sure if there was something to find, and it had been … Actually, how long had it been?

"How long … did he look for …?" the bond asked, putting a hand on his forehead as he attempted to stay awake – it was a slowly losing battle. For some reason he was just really tired. Tsuzuki gave him a slightly concerned look, and after a pause eventually responded,

"Well, I've been gone for three-ish hours … Why don't you go back to sleep? You're still really tired …" Green eyes narrowed in a glare, but for the moment Hisoka wasn't arguing; he _was_ tired, and staying awake like this wasn't making thinking any easier for him. So, he slowly laid back down, turning onto his side, allowing his eyes to close without putting up any sort of resistance because he was too sleepy to bother. However, before he allowed himself to completely fall asleep, he did say,

"If you find anything out, wake me up." Just to clarify that yes he was tired, but the case was still more important to him than sleep … His body, however, didn't seem to agree, because a few minutes after that, and Hisoka was breathing the deep, slow rhythm of sleep.

* * *

He realized after a few moments that what was rousing him from his sleep was the sound of birds outside the hotel … But then, that meant that someone had opened the window that he'd closed the night previous, because otherwise he most likely wouldn't have heard them loudly enough for it to have actually done anything. Shifting underneath his blankets, he moved around a little so that he could get some air, making a hole in the small cocoon he had created for himself so that he could breathe. Green eyes blinked slightly, and he was for once loathe to get out of the warmth of the blankets, the air outside of them cold and stinging his face a little when he turned so he could get fresh air.

Glancing around blearily, his eyes fell on the table that was across the room, where surprisingly, his partner was sitting, hunched over, looking at something that Hisoka didn't even try to see from his poor vantage point. Sliding out of the blankets a little more and shivering, he glanced at the digital clock in the room, which told him it was almost 5:00. Brow furrowing, he turned and looked again – yes, Tsuzuki was definitely wake; Hisoka could see him jotting something down, his shoulder moving in short, quick strokes, before turning back to the lap top that was open in front of him and typing something.

"Have you been to sleep?" the sudden noise cutting through the silence made the brunet across the room jump and nearly fall over, whipping around to look at Hisoka with slightly wide eyes. After he managed to calm himself after a few moments, he blinked a couple of times and then put that stupid grin on his face as per usual before he shrugged, not really answering. The blond took that to mean 'no', and he sighed, rolling his eyes before pushing the blankets off of himself and climbing off of the futon, taking his kendo uniform from his bag and walking into the bathroom to put it on.

"If you're useless today because you haven't slept," Hisoka said, coming back into the room a few minutes later, "don't complain when I get annoyed." Crouching down next to his duffle bag, he heard his partner say something and laugh a little, but Hisoka didn't hear what it was – probably some silly comment about how he was sure he'd be fine.

"Did you find anything?" the younger shinigami prodded after some silence, taking to putting his dirty clothes away and retrieving his shinai and jikatabi before glancing at Tsuzuki, who just sighed in vague, tired frustration.

"Nothing yet …" He watched carefully as the brunet ran his fingers through his hair and scratched his head, stretching a little bit as he did so; something about how Tsuzuki held himself was off … Reaching out just a little bit, he ran head-long into a wall that was neatly keeping everything the brunet was feeling and thinking for the most part separate from Hisoka's awareness, and for some reason … This really bothered him. Eyes narrowing, he said,

"I'm going to practice," tone sharper than he probably meant for it to be as he exited the room and went down the hall to get outside. _What is he doing that he needs to hide from me …?_ He thought slightly irritably as he put his shoes on outside of the ryokan once again, hands moving quickly and methodically to fasten them to his feet. Since Kyoto, Tsuzuki had been hiding his emotions less from Hisoka, forgoing his walls now and again to let the blond in a little; he had never told Hisoka that out loud, but the empath had noticed, and … Well, he hadn't realized how comforting that had been, as counter-intuitive as that sounds. He didn't like it when there were a lot of people around, and he didn't like it when other people's strong emotions were forced on him … But, he was around his partner all the time and Tsuzuki opening up a little to him … Trusting him enough to let him know now and again what he was feeling or thinking … It was nice.

_Maybe he's just worried about overloading you because of that nightmare he claims you had …?_ He thought this to himself as he made his way once again through the tall, unkempt grass towards the spot he had been practicing in the day previous. This of course brought back his memories of the night before, as well as his _non_-memories; he wasn't sure why he hadn't been able to remember the dream, and he still couldn't … Hell, he couldn't remember if he'd dreamed after he'd gone back to sleep; but the positive side to that was that he had had a very restful sleep – even after all of that hard labor yesterday, and ignoring the fact that his limbs ached and burned a little from the extra exertion, he felt very well-rested …

Soon after, he pushed the foreign thoughts away so that he could focus on the martial art he was diligently practicing. Taking purposeful breaths, and letting go of them, slowly and rhythmically following the motions with his hands and arms – his entire body, and his weapon, he made himself concentrate on feeling the practice beneath his fingers, how it curved and the resistance it gave – how it moved when he tensed and loosened the muscles in his hands … It became like an extension of his arms, giving him a greater reach that he had to discipline with control …

Once again, Tsuzuki came and got him when six o'clock rolled around, and once again Hisoka didn't notice his partner because he was so focused on what he was doing … He went inside without saying anything, instead just changing his clothes again, and making a cup of noddles for himself, knowing that he needed to eat something before going to work. He hadn't the day before, and while he worked hard enough that never actually felt hunger pangs, he was sure it was a bad idea to do the same again. Afterward, he turned to leave, alerting the brunet that was also in the hotel room that he was ready to leave, making sure as almost an afterthought to bring more than one bottle of water for each of them; he'd learned from the day previous that sixteen ounces of water was simply _not_ enough considering the caliber of the work they were doing …

* * *

Today, Hisoka saw no trace of Aneko while they worked – she was never ducking around a corner to escape notice, or hiding behind a curtain trying to look at the two workers … But then, the blond also didn't have much time to notice anything – as per Muchiro's instructions before he had gone off to work, a lot of the grass they had managed to bring under control the day previous needed to be removed entirely; he wanted a more traditional looking yard to "match the history of the house", or so he'd claimed. Hisoka personally thought that the man delighted in watching them suffer, and was trying to make the most work possible for them.

Alright, so he didn't _really_ think that, but his body at the very least was convinced that it was the man's motivation behind making them remove all of this sod from the ground.

It suited his partner – the physical labor. He was tired; Hisoka didn't need to be an empath to see that. He'd been working hard in the hot sun for hours, probably on little to no sleep, while the blond stayed mostly hidden in the shade from the violently bright rays. But Tsuzuki was happy – the fake smile he'd plastered on his face earlier that morning was gone, a general look of contentment long since replacing it … For a moment, the green eyed shinigami looked down at himself, and found he was vaguely jealous of his partner. Jealous that Tsuzuki could find so much joy in something so mundane … It was almost as if he were observing a child.

Realizing he was staring, Hisoka jolted a little, picking up his squared spade and starting to remove the sod again. _Crunch… Tear … Thump … _the sounds of the methodic rhythm of undercutting the grass's roots, pulling up a section, and depositing it in the nearby pile that he had started were soothing, and after a while he had just about finished with the area that he was attempting to clean out.

" … 'Soka, don't forget under the pine trees!" Tsuzuki said in a slightly elevated voice so that his partner would hear him. Blinking, green eyes rolled and he stood up, slinging his shovel over his shoulder haphazardly; of course he was going to do that area too – he just hadn't gotten to it yet …

"Yeah; I know," he called absently, not looking at the brunet as he turned to walk back a few steps and resume his work – digging out the grass that grew right up next to the roots of the pine tree so that they could cover the area in gravel. However, he paused as he heard his shove hit something above him that didn't exactly sound like a tree branch, and the blond accordingly turned to figure out what it had been …

But he didn't get that far.

Because suddenly there was pain; at first a prick here, and a prick there, which hurt enough by itself and made his skin feel hot and uncomfortable, but … Before long there were what felt like hundreds of squirming, swarming insects in a cloud around him, clearly irritated because, as he would have found out if he had managed to see it, Hisoka had knocked the hornet's nest he had noticed the day before out of the pine tree he had been moving towards.

The pain was terrible; he couldn't concentrate enough to even translocate across the yard to get them off of him – they were all over the place. In his mouth, under his hair, stinging every inch of his flesh … Hisoka didn't know if he was screaming – he honestly wouldn't have been sure he could, because of the thick cloud of insects that were swarming him. The blond could feel them in his _throat_, stinging his _eyes_ … He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see – he'd closed his eyes reflexively to try to protect them, but it didn't matter. His skin was inflamed and flaring with heat, and over the buzzing of what sounded like thousands of wings, he could hear nothing – he wasn't even aware of it when his body fell to the ground like a dead weight, falling into darkness before he could register the impact...

**Tsu zu ku**

**(To be Continued)**

Footnotes:

1 – Yubikiri refers to the rhyme school children say in Japan when they are making a pinky swear that is meant to teach them not to lie/break their promises. It reads: "Yubikiri genman usotsuitara hari sen bo nomimasu. Yubi kita" which roughly translated means "Let's make a promise, and if (you) lie, (you'll have to) drink a thousand needles. It's a promise."

2 – In the following section the dialogue will be a rough English translation of Tomino no Jigoku (Tomino's Hell); please do not read it out loud. (Just in case!)

3 – This is your third and final warning; please do _not_ read the following transcription aloud.


	4. Breathing Pearls

A/N: Again, usually don't do these, but I am sorry this chapter took so long; thank you **so much** for your reviews – you have no idea how happy it makes me to read them! Consensus seems to be that you guys like the long chapters, which is good because I like to write them, so I'll keep shooting for 8k words or so per chapter.

Much love for **lamiabeauty**, **LillianeDeMalvrier**, and **Oh Govna** (I really like that username btw xD)

Chapter title, Tama o Haku, means "Breathes Pearls" or "Breathing Pearls".

**Tama o Haku**

Hisoka's mind slowly shifted back and forth underneath what felt like a cover of darkness, or from behind a thick rain cloud, and as his awareness rose he realized he could feel something. It felt like … Warmth – sunlight … Outside. Strange; last he remembered, he had been doing something, in the shade, he thought … … It also occurred to the blond that it was strange he felt so warm, and yet it was so dark – until he realized that his eyes being closed likely accounted for that. Slowly, hazy green eyes cracked open slightly, before immediately closing again, because on the other side of his eyelids was a seemingly endless expanse of blinding whiteness.

"It's alright …" a voice said quietly, slowly, as if it were whispering in his ear from a hundred different angles at once. The blond frowned a little when he heard it – it wasn't a voice he recognized. "You can open your eyes – I am sorry for all of the light. I wasn't expecting you to wake so soon." Hisoka's brow furrowed slightly at the languid voice, but after a pause his green eyes opened hesitantly, and he found that indeed – there was no more light to a blinding degree, but instead an almost soft glow to his surroundings, which was far more forgiving to his retinas. Once his eyes focused, he realized that there was someone sitting in front of him. The form was much larger than he was; possibly big enough to even dwarf Tsuzuki when set side by side. The figure was draped in what looked like yards of fabric, mostly white, with other colors added in to break up the monotony – and from the figure's back came two large shapes that Hisoka couldn't really identify at first … But once he stared for a while, he realized what they must be. _Wings_.

"I admit, it would have been far more … _ideal_ … had you not seen me at all …" that indolent, dual-voice spoke again, almost tickling his eardrum with how quiet and close to him it was, even though the form he was seeing in this strangely comfortable void was clearly several feet away at least. "My kind attempts to stay hidden as best we can – even from someone that is no longer entirely mortal, such as yourself …" Head cocking to the side a little, Hisoka tried to get a good look at this person, but realized that really, their visage was clouded, almost as if in the shade, and for all the detail in their clothing he could make out, it was hard to see anything of their face, except the mouth, which wasn't moving._ Angels … __**are**__ very rare …_ he thought to himself as realization dawned on him.

"You're … an Angel?" Hisoka couldn't believe what he was hearing, and the disbelief was evident in his tone. However, he was only met with a warm, slightly amused smile that drew itself across the figures lips.

"Is there … something that stops you from believing …?" the blond blinked; the slightly echoing whisper in his mind was difficult at best to get used to … But after a moment his hair swayed as he shook his head 'no' slowly.

"I … guess not," he said skeptically – it was clear he was not convinced. "Where are we?" Hisoka asked suddenly, changing the subject entirely. He would decide if he believed the allegation later; right now he was more interested in the fact that the last thing he remembered now that he was more aware was being horribly savaged by bees in the shade of that cluster of pine trees. The recollection of all those tiny, angry bodies crawling all over his skin, in his mouth, through his hair, not to mention being mercilessly stung, made his flesh crawl.

"Inside your mind – while your body heals," came the response, and Hisoka's brow furrowed once again – he was about to ask for clarification, but the 'angel' beat him to it. "As I said – you are awake slightly earlier than anticipated … ideally, you'dve woken when your body healed enough to sustain your consciousness; but it's not quite ready yet …" Hisoka shook his head.

"What? That doesn't make sense – that's never happened before; when my body needs to heal, I –"

"Tell me," the voice interrupted, and something in it's tone made the perpetual sixteen-year-old pause, "have you ever contracted hundreds of stings from bees sent by a demon specifically intended to kill you?" Green eyes blinked, momentary non-comprehension clouding his features before he pushed it back behind his customary neutral scowl.

"What do you mean 'sent by a demon'?"

"The demon I've been searching for," the voice responded, back to it's slow, echoing drawl, "evidently realized that you were searching as well, and took the news … less than favorably, shall we say …? And, apparently decided to do something about that."

"Wait – demon you've been searching for? So, you're the one that's been –"

"Trying to stop humans from dying needlessly at the hands of an escaped demon, whose business seems to be trading lives for lives?" the 'angel' offered. Green eyes narrowed slightly.

"So then … You know what demon has been doing this …?" he asked slowly, still painfully suspicious. He felt more than saw the almost apologetic shaking head.

"Unfortunately no – I believe I know what type of demon is causing these problems … But I have yet to discover its name so that it might be banished or destroyed …" Hisoka paused, trying to figure out what to say next, when the voice continued, "because I am at a higher spiritual frequency than normal humans can perceive, my investigation has come to a sort of stand-still, if you will …" the voice trailed off, and for a while, there was a silence before Hisoka spoke up in his aloof tone.

"Well, if you're in my mind right now, can't you just show up in other people's heads and find out whatever you want to know?"

"It's …. more complicated than that," the slow voice replied, trailing along through the words at a lackadaisical pace. The blond wasn't sure he believed that answer, but he also didn't really care one way or another if this being found out or did not find out what was happening with these victims, because it was _his_ case – his and Tsuzuki's.

"Perhaps …" Hisoka's attention was drawn back to the figure at the interjection; there was a hesitation in the voice now, almost thoughtful in it's loftiness, before it continued, "you and I could assist each other?" the shinigami's eyes narrowed slightly; so, a bodiless being of some kind or another wanted to team up with Hisoka to help in his investigation …? If that didn't sound extremely suspect, Hisoka didn't know what did.

"Thanks," the blond said curtly, "but I already have a partner, so, I think I'll pass." There was more hesitation that the blond could almost feel after these sharp words, and for the first time the figure shifted slightly, though the mouth that the teenager could see didn't change in the slightest.

"I won't intrude …" the 'angel' pressed gently, with a vague indication of what Hisoka interpreted as an amused smile, which irked him. "And, since you can't seem to really focus on me even when you're _looking_ for me, I won't be in the way either …" the sixteen year old paused a moment thoughtfully, and then the meaning dawned on him.

"You were the presence? The one I couldn't touch in the house …?" his tone was accusatory, and a small, indulgent nod was the response Hisoka received. After another bit of a pause, the mildly infuriating being said,

"I already told you; my kind are on a higher frequency than humans are able to perceive. The fact that you even noticed my presence at all tells me that you must have some sort of blessing –" Hisoka's snort cut the sentence off right there; he'd nearly burst out laughing bitterly at the suggestion that anything good had ever come from his empathy.

"You don't believe that you are blessed …?" silence was the only response that came from the shinigami participant in this conversation, and that silence stretched on for what seemed like a very long time before it was once again broken by the being that Hisoka still couldn't see the face of. "Then believe this, and perhaps you will trust what I say. You are looking for a sun demon."

* * *

"Hisoka? Hisoka!" the exclamation received a groggy sort of noise in response as green eyes blinked open slowly, and he felt a familiar wave of nausea when his body was jerked upwards into what he would later identify as a hug. There was some vague discomfort, including the fact that his skin felt too tight for his body, and it was far too hot in the room, but there wasn't any overt _pain_ that he could identify, which was good – he thought that maybe he should have been in a little pain … _Oh right; because of the bees … _he thought to himself dryly as he tried to dislodge himself from his partner, who was the one clinging to him like a small child.

"Ts'zuki …" he muttered, shoving at the violet eyed shinigami's head weakly – he was being gripped so tightly that he was having a difficult time breathing. Eventually his vision cleared up a little, and the lights that were too bright to see through dimmed a bit. He was in the infirmary at the ministry, in an unfortunately familiar bed. "… le'go …" Hisoka managed before his hand fell away from the brown strands of hair he had in his loose grasp; though this time, his partner did as he had asked … Which was good, because he was just starting to perceive the sheer volume of anxiety and worry being pressed down on him from the older shinigami, and if he was exposed to direct contact with that for much longer, he was sure he was either going to be physically ill or pass back out again.

"You had us worried, Bon," (1) he vaguely registered another voice speaking to him as he was poked and prodded, and Hisoka realized after a few disoriented moments that it was Watari, and he was checking the blond's vital signs. For once his eccentric hyper-ness was dialed down a few notches, and it allowed for a more serious note in his actions. He was smiling at Hisoka, who managed to decipher this after a light was shown into his eyes, which he protested, but the red head insisted was necessary.

"You've been asleep for nearly a day." _I don't understand; you weren't having an allergic reaction to the bee stings – that many shouldn't have done so much damage to a shinigami … _Hisoka heard the thoughts before he could help it as Watari put pressure on the skin of his wrist to check the teenager's pulse against his watch before he could stop himself. Hisoka almost let slip that that was because a demon may or may not haev sent the bees specifically to kill him. At least, that's what the angel had said, if he was believing that that had actually _been _an angel …

However, he stopped before he opened his mouth. Not only would he sound like he had completely lost all sanity and credibility because his source was a voice in his head essentially, but if he told them that he thought a demon may have targeted him, they might take Tsuzuki and him off of the case. Not only would they drown the blond in worry for the rest of eternity, but … Well, his partner had been at his desk, itching to escape the confines of his cubicle space – that, and the idiot really enjoyed gardening and being outdoors… Hisoka didn't want to take that away from him if he could help it.

And besides, he didn't even have any proof that there was something after him. As far as he knew, it was heresy.

"A day …?" was all Hisoka could think to ask, voice groggy with disbelief as the red headed 'doctor' continued to poke and prod him. A nod was the only response this time as he managed to focus now on the shinigami of the Kyoto region without too much difficulty before he glanced over at his partner, who was a few feet away from the bed, watching. Noticing the younger Shinigami looking at him, Tsuzuki blinked and then apparently decided that the blond wanted to know about the case because he said,

"When you were stung … I brought you here as fast as I could … And left a note explaining that I had to take you to be treated because of the bee stings … Since yesterday was Friday, they won't miss us if we don't go back until Monday …" he sort of trailed off here; it seemed to Hisoka like Tsuzuki didn't want to suggest they were going back so that it put pressure on him to get well sooner, but he didn't _not _want to suggest that because he didn't want his partner to be anxious that they weren't going back or something … The conflicted feelings were tangible even across the room.

Please; as if Hisoka was going to sit in this hospital bed for any longer than he already had …

* * *

It had taken a good deal of insistence, as well as countless stubborn assertions that he was fine now, and he just wanted to get back to work to take his mind off of being stung hundreds of times. It had also probably helped that he'd mentioned that he might have an idea of what kind of demon they're after, though that was as of yet the most information he'd given out on that subject. He hadn't wanted to mention 'sun demon' if it wasn't something that existed … Eventually, after Watari had continued to examine and question him until he was contented, they had been allowed to leave the infirmary with the warning that he had been pretty injured, so his healing factor might be a little on the fritz. Basically take it easy, don't get hit by any cars, etc.

His partner, however, was slowly grating on his nerves, though he was being as patient as he could manage. To be fair, he _had_ just been unconscious for twenty-four hours, according to his fellow shinigami, and he could see how that might be a little nerve wracking. But, Tsuzuki was basically doing the equivalent to hovering over him, back and forth, constantly checking that Hisoka was still sitting there, and that he was alright.

The blond had been researching in the Gushoshin's library for what was probably hours now, looking for information on sun demons – it was a long shot as far as he was concerned, but he wanted to prove the 'angel' wrong so that he could forget about what was probably a histamine induced hallucination. Especially since not only had he never heard of a 'sun demon' before, but for everything he knew about demons, the name seemed a little counter-intuitive at best … However, about an hour or so earlier, he had hit his first tiny glimpse of information on something called a 'Daemon Solis', which roughly translated from Latin, meant 'demon of the sun'. When he'd come across it, his green eyes had stared in shock and disbelief for a long minute before he immediately started searching with renewed vigor. And eventually, what he started to piece together from fragments of books was startling …

"So … You never did tell me what you're looking for …" Tsuzuki asked the question quietly, so he wouldn't startle his partner. He had been sitting in relative silence for most of the time that Hisoka had been pouring through the books he removed from the shelves as he discovered them. Blond locks swayed as Hisoka's head swiveled back and forth, skimming the page that was in front of him quickly but diligently, flipping it as he came to the end and continuing on.

"Sun demon," he responded dispassionately, distracted by something he thought may be worthwhile to jot down. At this answer, which was the first time the blond had deemed to say anything in almost the whole time they'd been sitting there, no matter what questions he was asked. Tsuzuki paused, and Hisoka could nearly _taste_ his confusion … A vague sigh preceded his explanation of, "they're associated with a stylized sun; specifically the points that come off of it that are supposed to represent it's rays – they have nothing to do with actual sunlight." When he had found out that there was such a thing as a 'sun' demon, finding out that little tidbit had made the concept seem much more permissible in his mind. He continued to skim the page in silence, assuming he'd answered the brunet's question accurately and informatively enough that he wouldn't ask any more.

"… Why do you think it's a sun demon?" apparently this was not the case. He didn't glance up from the text he was skimming, closing that book a few moments later and moving the small pad of paper he was taking sparse notes on. He could set a new book on top of the one he'd just finished with.

"Because …" he half muttered, trailing off for a second as he read. Then, realizing he had been saying something he continued, "because … of the victims." He couldn't say the first answer he thought of, which was something along the lines of 'because of the bees' – he didn't even want _Tsuzuki_ to think that he'd been some sort of target. It wasn't like the answer was a lie; it just wasn't exactly the whole truth.

"Um … 'Soka …? What do needles have to do with the sun …?" The brunet put his hand on the back of his neck as he said this, and he kept his tone light hearted; he was trying to tease his partner a little, to get him to lighten up. Ever since they had come to the library, Hisoka had been extremely serious. This attempt, much like any other previous one, failed miserably. Green eyes kept skimming the page in the book he was reading, jotting down another note again when he found something else that might've been useful. Absently, he responded,

"Sun demon is a misnomer," he explained, turning the page, "the reason they're called that is because they are associated with, and control … sharp things, like the rays of the stylized sun. Needles, thorns, stingers, knives – anything pointed is within it's jurisdiction." _That's why it would have been able to send bees after me __**and**__ use needles; it can use both,_ he added the thought but made no indication that there was an end to the sentence that he didn't mention aloud.

But, as promising as this lead seemed, when he looked at what notes he had, he realized they were sadly … Lacking. For all of the time he'd spent looking for information, he barely had three short, scrawled pages of information in his tiny note pad. Nowhere near enough to make a sound conviction on, and he was getting stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. Stretching a little, he sighed under his breath; he wasn't going to find anything else out now.

"I'm going to back to Unzen," he announced in a quiet voice, though it was certainly loud enough for Tsuzuki to hear in the silence of the library. At this, the brunet perked up; he had been bored the entire time he was there, when he wasn't watching Hisoka – he was like a little kid. Every now and again he'd flip through a book or look at something with the intention of helping his partner's research, even if he had no idea what he was looking for. But the violet eyed shinigami immediately ended up getting distracted, or more often worried about Hisoka spontaneously for no reason. This of course hindered whatever he had set out to do afterwards, and he'd go back to wallowing in boredom. Until he realized he could attempt to be useful, and started flipping through a book again.

Lather, rinse, and repeat ad infinitum.

Hisoka went to pick up the handful of books that had actually proved to be useful in his searching, but Tsuzuki beat him to half the pile, taking three of the five books and leaving two for his tired partner to carry. He didn't bother arguing with the brunet; he just took the books that were left. He then located one of the Gushoshin brothers, to let them know what he was taking, in case they needed it for something while he had it out. That done, he was at liberty to go back to Unzen in order to continue his research and prepare for the next day's work …

* * *

_Black; everything is black … _

_I'm walking through the darkness alone … … _

_But I'm not alone._

_I think someone is here._

_If I look, somehow I know that I will see something stark and white against the darkness; someone, wearing a red kimono. I turn my head up and unsurprisingly I see her – him. It. Standing in front of me. Wearing a red yukata and worn geta that seemed … Familiar, somehow. Short, dark hair framed the face I couldn't see – but I knew that didn't matter. Somehow I know that the figure is staring at me; watching me. This whole time, I never stopped walking forward – even though I wasn't telling my body to move. My feet took steps of their own accord._

_Eventually, I am aware of a sound; a heavy, strange sound that I'm not accustomed to … and after a few moments, I realize - it's breathing. Heavy, slow breaths, and they aren't coming from me … But there is another sound as well. A much more rhythmic sound – in time with those deep breaths … And as I glance down, I see what the source is. There is a trail of perfect, white spheres two staggered a straight lines between the two of us, connecting us together._

_They looked like pearls._

_As I watch, they roll into my feet, lightly tapping against the toe of my shoe and disappearing. And, almost as if the pearls are making my feet move, when one of them touches my foot, that foot picks up and moves forward, toward this person…_

_And then, I realized what the source of these pearls were; the person standing across from me, in the yukata; they pearls fell with the breaths… Almost as if they were breathing them out. She looks as pale as death; her skin is white, there are dark gray shadows under the eyes that I can't see – but I can see a mouth. And at first, it's neutral, but as I approach it slowly stretches into a smile. The expression is almost unsettling, and I feel apprehension twist in my stomach – I want to stop moving towards the child-sized figure, but I can't stop as long as those pearls keep coming …_

_But then, she – he, it – started to cough as I approached, pausing and shaking as their lungs violently spasmed, coughing up lungfuls of pearls._

"_O-oi … Are you alright?" I heard myself asked, and I felt myself bending down slightly, so that I was eye-level. __Something is wrong, I suddenly realized. __**Everything**__ is wrong. At that moment, the faceless person turned, and I noticed that poking out of the darkness that was where her eyes would have been were thin silver streaks – _

_Needles._

_But I am distracted because in response to my question, I can just barely make out a whisper as she falls forward and disappears._

"_Welcome …"_

* * *

Hisoka woke up slowly, glancing over at the clock automatically. _Four-thirty again,_ he thought absently as he rolled onto his side; once again he had a dreamless sleep. It was definitely a strange trend that had developed, that was certain but … At the same time he couldn't say he was upset about it. Staring at the ceiling for a while, he decided that he might as well get up, since prospects for going back to sleep seemed unlikely at best if you took a look at the pattern he seemed to be developing. Walking stiffly into the washroom, because for some reason his body ached, he realized that he felt a little clammy, so he went to the sink to splash his face with some cold water. However, he paused when he saw his reflection in the mirror.

Hisoka … didn't look so good, even he had to admit. There were dark circles under his eyes; it looked like he hadn't been sleeping at all. Which was strange because he'd been sleeping really well lately, even if he did get up weirdly early. His whole body hurt for some reason – he wasn't sure why; maybe he slept wrong or something? He also didn't seem to be able to kick the habit of waking up in the middle of the night as if he were having bad dreams, but he supposed if he wasn't actually having nightmares then he didn't care. Leaning on the sink with his elbows, he pushed his hands against his elbows.

Not that it really mattered, but this was going to make Kendo practice difficult.

Sighing, the blond dried his face and hands off and went out into the hotel room, mechanically retrieving his uniform and changing into it and silently walking out into the yard. At the moment, he felt as though a light breeze would probably be able to knock him over, so it occurred to him as he fastened his jikatabi that maybe he should meditate a little first to get a better handle on his body. Walking over to a small stone bench that sat in the middle of the weedy garden, Hisoka carefully set his practice sword on it before sitting down next to it cross legged. And just moving into that position made him wince a little. The blond shinigami sighed to himself as he sat up straight and closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. _In … … one … In … … two …_ he started counting breaths on the exhale to help center himself.

/_Your body is still recovering from the attack … Perhaps you should just meditate for today …?/_

Hisoka started slightly, green eyes snapping open as he looked around. He didn't _see_ anyone in the area … … So what the hell was that? … … After he was satisfied that there was no one in the vicinity, and he scrutinized his surroundings for a good minute or two, he suspiciously closed his eyes again. _In … … one … … In … … two … _

_/If you're not in a relaxed state, you can't hear me …/_

… … Hisoka recognized that voice, though it was quieter now, presumably not to startle him out of meditating again. It took a moment to identify it, but it was that low, languid tone of the self-proclaimed 'angel' that the young shinigami had assumed was a fever dream or something. Immediately the blond considered going back to EnMaCho to see what sort of exorcism Watari could perform before Tsuzuki woke up so that the older shinigami wouldn't worry, but before he could get up, the voice spoke again.

_/Have you found anything on Sun Demons yet?/_

At those words Hisoka paused; he didn't know how exactly to respond to the question. Mostly because, previous to meeting this supposed 'angel', he hadn't even known there was such a thing as a sun demon … And the more he learned about the modus operandi of this particular type of demon, the more convinced he was that it was what they were searching for. But that didn't necessarily mean he should trust anything this disembodied voice was telling him, now that it seemed like he wasn't actually hallucinating. _… Where are you?_ He eventually asked suspiciously, presuming that this thing could hear his thoughts. If he couldn't see where this 'angel' was, then he really was going to Watari.

_/I told you – you won't be able to see me … But I'm here, if this helps?/_

The perpetual sixteen year old paused in his breathing when he felt something warm on his shoulder. It almost felt like someone putting a hand on his shoulder, and he looked despite the warning that he wouldn't see anything, and unsurprisingly, he didn't. However, something about the more or less tangible feeling of something there calmed Hisoka's nerves a little. Only a little though. _Alright; now why should I believe you're some kind of 'higer being' – angel, or whatever you want to call it?_

_/Well, don't I get to ask you a question …?/_

The blond was about to answer in the negative, probably with something rude, but he didn't really get the chance. Either the voice knew that it wasn't going to get a word in edgewise if it didn't interrupt, or it didn't care what Hisoka's response might've been.

_/Why don't you think your gift is a blessing? The only reason we can communicate at all is because of it./_

The young shinigami's temper rose just slightly here. After the life he'd lead, made mostly a hell because of this disease – this curse – he'd been born with … That question just made him irrationally angry, especially coming from something who didn't know him and had no business asking it. _Because it's always been a burden._, he snapped, and then immediately continued, _my turn; give me one good reason why shouldn't I get an exorcist._

_/… Well … because it wouldn't work …? I'm not possessing you or anything; I'm just trying to have a civil conversation … /_

Hisoka was not amused by the response. True it wasn't possessing him, but it was annoying him, and he was sure that there was something he could do about it. If Watari couldn't do anything, he was sure _someone_ at EnMaCho could do _something_ …

_/Why has it always been a burden …? It could be such a beautiful gift, if it's not misused …/_

Though his eyes were still closed, the shinigami's brow furrowed slightly. Apparently it didn't want to drop the subject … Though it seemed odd for talk like that about his empathy – as if he had some sort of authority on the subject. _… What do you know about it? _He snapped, still annoyed and now considering getting up and going back to the office. He doubted Tsuzuki was awake yet, so he probably had some time …

_/Well .. considering that it's one of my abilities, this 'curse' that you refer to as empathy … I think I might know … enough?/_

This made the shinigami pause without meaning to, and apparently the silence was taken as a tentative opening to continue talking, because that is what the 'angel' did.

_/I don't mean to assume, but … do … you want me to explain how to use it properly?/_

"Hisoka?" the blond shinigami gasped sharply in surprise when there was a sudden noise very close to him, green eyes snapping open and nearly falling off of the bench he was stationed on. The only reason he didn't was because whoever had spoken put their arms out and caught him before he could fall too far. Looking around wildly for a moment because he'd been so surprised, he realized quickly that it was his partner that had him, and he calmed immediately.

"I … I'm sorry, 'Soka," Tsuzuki said quietly as the blond pulled away from him and snatched up his kendo sword. He wasn't so much mad at the brunet for sneaking up on him as he was that Tsuzuki had been _able_ to sneak up on him. He didn't usually meditate that deeply. "I just – you've been out here for a long time, so I was wondering if you'd … Fallen asleep …?" Please. Hisoka was a scant foot away from his partner, and he didn't need empathy to tell that that line was a lie. He'd been worried; plain and simple. _So why don't you just say that to me …?_ He thought irritably, though all he did outwardly was shrug.

"Just meditating; what time is it?" Hisoka's tone was dismissive, and he didn't exactly mean it, but his patience was wearing thin quickly. It was almost like he was tired, but he didn't feel it, and he'd slept fine. Tsuzuki paused a moment before checking his wristwatch.

"Almost seven-thirty," was the response, and that made green eyes widen marginally. He'd been sitting out here for nearly three hours … … It felt like it hadn't even been thirty minutes. However, he brushed it off and didn't say anything as he went to move past the taller male.

"Do you feel alright, Hisoka …?" the question made the blond, who was walking back toward the ryokan, pause a moment in his tracks. The way Tsuzuki asked that – it was almost like he'd noticed something was wrong, but he thought Hisoka hadn't. _Well, I already know I look like death warmed over, thank you,_ he thought as he brushed it off and just nodded, muttering,

"I'm fine," before continuing on to slip off his shoes deftly and go back inside. He could feel his partner's eyes on him, and it made him uneasy … … Well, actually, no – now that he thought about it, it wasn't _his_ unease he was feeling … It was coming from … … somewhere else. But as far as he could tell, there was no one else around – this little traditional hotel was so small and run down it was little surprise that they were currently the only guests staying in it. Glancing around one more time before he entered their room, he went to change out of his kendo uniform. He hadn't done any practicing, but his body was still stiff for whatever reason, so it was probably a good idea to just rest for today. Not that he'd mention anything of the sort to Tsuzuki, because that would only give him cause to do more unnecessary worrying …

* * *

"Hisoka?! Where are you going?"

"OUT!" he shouted, slamming the rickety door to their hotel room hard enough that it was a miracle it didn't fall off the wall. It opened a minute later behind him, and he heard his partner calling after him, but he didn't care. He either needed to blow off some steam or his head was going to explode, and he could _not _be around Tsuzuki anymore. He just couldn't believe Tsuzuki; he had said he was _fine_ – so why wasn't his partner just letting it go? Yeah; ok fine, he was unconscious for a day or so. But he felt back to normal – he wasn't sick, maybe a little tired. It wasn't like he had suggested they go till up the lawn again; all he had said was maybe they should go back to the house and look around. And the brunet had flipped out. In so far as Tsuzuki ever did, which basically he got very serious and sternly said 'no', which pissed the blond _right_ off because he hated being treated like a little kid. _Whatever; I'll go look around myself – it's not like he __**needs**__ to be there or anything,_ he thought irritably, glaring at the concrete as he waited on the corner for a light to change. Green eyes were narrowed in anger, and he had his hands shoved in the pockets of his jean jacket as he started to stalk across the street. His only warning was a -

- loud noise before suddenly he fell forward onto his hands and knees hard. It felt like something had slammed into his back, and knocked him down. Rolling over, stunned and wrists stinging, he realized the background noise he'd heard had been a car beeping it's horn … Most likely because it had been about to run Hisoka over.

"Are you alright, young man …?" glancing up, he realized there was an old woman speaking to him, but he didn't respond. A couple other people's attention had been caught, and the car had pulled over – Hisoka could see someone taking off their seatbelt to get out. There was concern coming from all angles suddenly as people started towards him, and their thoughts were a jumble of questions about his wellbeing and what had happened … It was making his mind spin and he'd only been exposed to it for a second. He was starting to feel hot and nauseous, and that wasn't because he'd almost been put in a very painful position a few moments ago … Scrambling up off of the ground, he started off quickly – drawing attention to himself was not something he liked to do. At the moment, his body was on auto-pilot, which in retrospect would seem ridiculous because that was what had gotten him into this situation in the first place. But, he couldn't help it – he was sort of in shock. It wouldn't have _killed_ him, but Watari had warned him that, among other things, getting hit full on by a car would be a bad idea in his still-healing state …

Walking quickly and at the same time aimlessly through the small town and away from the roads when possible, he eventually made it to the shoreline. He hadn't meant to make it there, but then, he hadn't really been looking to get anywhere besides _away_, so … In that respect he'd done what he wanted. The blond was also breathing a little heavily – he had been walking pretty fast without stopping for … Well, he didn't know how long he'd been walking, actually.

Looking out across the beach to the water, the wind picked up a little, cooling the light sheen of sweat on his forehead and making him shiver slightly. Letting his wrists hang inside of his pockets, he stepped down onto the sand, feeling his sneakers sink in slightly before he started walking slowly. Listening to the salt water wash up on the sand helped to calm his nerves slightly; he was still reeling – that had all happened so fast … He'd just been so angry he hadn't been paying attention … _I'dve been hit if it wasn't for … …_ pausing in his thoughts, he went back to that moment – why _hadn't_ he been hit …?

Something had knocked him out of the way… But what? When he'd turned the only thing that had been behind him was a car. Thinking back and replaying the scene as he remembered it, it took a few runs of it to realize that there was something he hadn't noticed at first. Probably because of the blaring horn – he hadn't noticed a sound. He had had a warning of sorts … It was a sudden _/Look out!/ …_ and the words came over the background noise, so Hisoka hadn't noticed it before. Slowing to a stop, he might have realized who'd said it, suddenly.

He opened his eyes, narrowing them suspiciously and glancing around a moment before he saw a secluded outcropping of rocks set away from the road. Looking at it for a long moment, the blond's thoughts were rolling around in his head like pebbles in the surf. The easiest thing to do, if it had been what he thought it was, was to just ask … But talking to a disembodied figure seemed like a really dumb idea. Dumb to the point of possible endangerment of his life; if Tsuzuki knew he was talking to things he couldn't see – and at that thought, his temper flared up. _Why does it matter what he thinks?_ The irritated thought occurred to him; Tsuzuki would think it was a bad idea that he walked all the way to the shore like he just had, but he felt perfectly _fine_. He just insisted on treating Hisoka like a child – he was capable of making his own decisions.

Walking over to the large rocks slowly, he sat down on a smooth one and let out a breath. On some level the blond couldn't even believe he was doing this – he had probably just imagined it. In fact, he was sure he likely had. And it probably _was _a bad idea honestly; if he even got a response. Which he probably wouldn't. Which made this a waste of time. … So why was he trying to center and count breaths? _I'm probably crazy …_ he decided as he focused on his breathing to help him to relax into a meditative state.

_/Are you alright?_/

Was the first thing he heard, a quiet whisper, presumably so as not to startle him out of relaxing again. Honestly, Hisoka was surprised to hear the words. He hadn't expected the being to be around at all, so he didn't say anything at first. _Was that you?_ The meaning was implied in the blunt words, so Hisoka didn't explain any further.

_/ … … You were upset. You didn't see the car./_

Hisoka paused a long moment. Suspicions somewhat confirmed, that still didn't explain one thing that was bothering him. … _Why could I hear you? I wasn't meditating,_ the shinigami insisted, somewhere between agitated and on edge about that fact.

_/You … heard?/_

There was a pause before Hisoka felt himself shrug almost unsurely – was he not supposed to …? He realized he could feel a small degree of uncertainty and confusion, but it wasn't coming from him … And there wasn't anyone else around.

_/ ... Miten hän voi kuulleet …? / _(2)

Hisoka felt his nose wrinkle; what the hell was that …? It had sounded almost like absent mutterings, but not in a language that he knew. His confusion seemed to garner attention.

_/You … were able to hear that too …? Your gift is much stronger than I thought …/_

The young shinigami's closed eyes narrowed slightly. _Stop calling it that,_ he immediately snapped without necessarily meaning to. He was still in a bad mood from arguing with his partner and then nearly becoming road kill. If he hadn't been so distracted; he'd been reeling from feeling all that trepidation from his partner, and then getting angry about it; it felt like he had been swimming in it. He could probably still feel it on his skin if he cared to try—_Wait … didn't you say you could tell me how to control it?_ The blond cut his own thoughts off when this occurred to him. After what could almost be called a surprised pause came the response.

_/… No; I didn't say that./_

However, before Hisoka could express his annoyance, the voice continued.

_/I said I could tell you how to __**use**__ it. Not control it; at least, not the way you're thinking./_

He let out a sharp breath, which was probably half way between a snort and a sigh. What was the difference? Use – control; it all meant that maybe he could stop things like this from happening … If he didn't _know_ when Tsuzuki, or anyone else, was upset on his behalf … Maybe he wouldn't be so irritable all the time. And maybe he wouldn't pick so many fights with his partner.

_/If you try to 'control' it by your definition, you'll just be repressing it; eventually it will either hurt you or become … explosive./_

Well, that sounded dangerous. But, Hisoka had tried to shove it down before and it hadn't really worked out for him. It hadn't gone as bad as 'explosively', but suffice to say it had been a massive waste of time and effort on his part. _Alright then,_ he answered, _what's the difference?_ If it sounded alright … Maybe he'd hear this 'angel' out. It wouldn't hurt to let him talk, Hisoka supposed.

_/Well … if you accept it; allow it to become part of you instead of rejecting it … You will be able to stop other things from affecting you. It won't be such an … Invasive burden./_

He paused as he took in these words; at least it didn't _sound _too good to be true. If this thing had said 'yeah; I can make everything stop for you with the snap of my fingers', then Hisoka wouldn't have thought twice about figuring out an exorcism or something. But … It sounded like it would take work … And it sounded like it was going to be difficult, not that everything in his life leading up to this point hadn't been already. _And … afterwards, I wouldn't have to constantly feel what other people feel …? Or know what they're thinking …?_ He asked almost hesitantly, mulling this idea over in his head back and forth, trying to find something to question … And not really finding anything.

_/Yes./_

The response was a simple, one word – but it was a good word. It was a convincing word. _Alright _…_ but first_ … _tell me your name._ The blond wanted to know that much at least. He still wasn't entirely convinced this was an 'angel', though it was making a decent case for itself if it did end up telling him how to control (re: use) his empathy, but … It was never good to talk to anything unless you knew it's name. It was sort of … a supernatural insurance policy, since a name gave you power over something.

_/Of course. You would say my name as Hakumi./_

**Tsu zu ku … **

**(To Be Continued …)**

Footnotes:

1 – Just an affectionate pet name that Watari calls Hisoka in the Japanese manga/anime; it's basically the same as him calling Hisoka "kid".

2 – Ok; so this isn't actually Enochian … xD It's Finnish; I just picked a random language to get the point across that what Hisoka heard were words, but not words he understood.


	5. There is One Road to Hell

**A/N****:** Just wanted to point out that if you read the last chapter within the first twelve hours or so of my posting it, the angel's name was wrong … It's fixed now though. :) Also, longest chapter yet at 10.4k words!

Title, "Jigoku wa Hitotsu Michi" means "There is One Road to Hell"

**Jigoku wa Hitotsu Michi**

Suffice to say that this lesson was far more difficult than Hisoka had originally imagined it being. If asked he wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what he had been expecting, but whatever it had been, it hadn't seemed like it would be this. Hakumi explained the concept of what the blond would be learning simply enough. It shouldn't have been too hard – the only thing he had to do was accept emotions into himself that weren't his, then separate from them before allowing them back out.

In principal, it sounded easy; however, just the thought made his stomach crawl.

The question was; how was it going to work in practice? Hisoka wasn't particularly keen on the notion of finding people, especially not particularly emotional people, to attempt this on – but Hakumi assured him he wouldn't need to. The angel then explained that he could project emotions similar to regular human emotions, and he could control the degree to which the feelings hit the blond. It would give far more control over this 'practice' than entering into random emotional scenarios as they occur naturally and hoping for the best.

In the first fifteen minutes of trying, Hisoka knocked himself out of his meditative state twice, once falling completely off of the stone he was sitting on from sheer mental exertion.

At that point, Hakumi said they should stop; but all Hisoka could see was Tsuzuki's face when he'd snapped at him the day before for worrying about him. And a few days ago when they had been at the restaurant and he'd tried to get Hisoka to eat lunch. And another time the week previous when he'd been concerned about his partner. Countless instances … It seemed like most times he was angry with Tsuzuki or picked a fight with him, he'd gotten angry because he could feel what Tsuzuki was feeling – hear what he was thinking, even if he didn't say anything about it or let it show in any other way ... And Hisoka always reacted badly; pushed his partner away. Upset him.

The young Shinigami wasn't openly emotional by nature; especially because of his 'abilities'. He had enough emotions swimming around in his head most of the time that he didn't need to make any of his own. It was hard for him to express or talk about them, so he didn't. They usually just come off as annoyance at best. But … the way that Tsuzuki _looked _at him when he yelled at the brunet … when he said things that he didn't mean; got defensive for the smallest reason …

The blond shinigami had a lot of regret for a lot of things he did without meaning to – and if he could stop accidentally hurting people around him that cared about him ... even if it was hard ... he had to _try_.

That was what got him up off the sand and sitting once again to continue.

He'd stay there all night if he had to. It didn't matter; he refused to stop until he got some sort of result. Because if there really was any chance that he could control his abilities with this, he would take it.

* * *

_Black; everything is black … _

_I'm walking through the darkness alone … … _

_But I'm not alone._

_Someone is with me; I just ... I can't see them ... _

_I'm walking - I can still see those pearls; but I don't know where they're coming from anymore ... They're leading me down a path ... It's long - I can't see the end; and I know I'll be walking for a long time; even after I reach my destination. The path ... It's long and winding - and stretches on farther than I can see - into the darkness._

_Suddenly, I realize that something is compelling me to move, not only from the pearls - but from inside me. But ... It wasn't me... __**This**__ isn't me._

_I can't lose that._

_Stumbling, I tried to stop myself; I fought for a moment - and felt like I was going to be sick. I fell to my knees, and it felt like I was throwing up fire; the red liquid that pooled around me on the ground looked like blood. It was riddled with glinting silver slivers. _

_Needles._

* * *

Hisoka woke up suddenly, as he had been doing recently, and for a moment his green eyes just stared at the ceiling, unfocused. Blinking a few times, he realized there was a light on across the room, and turning his head, he glanced over, and saw Tsuzuki sitting at the table, looking over paperwork. Strange; he didn't even remember walking back to the hotel ... But he must have - he must've been tired enough that the memory was escaping him. His partner seemed to notice he was looking at him though, because violet eyes flickered up from what he was looking at, and he had an odd expression on his face ... One Hisoka couldn't quite place.

"Hisoka? Are you feeling alright ...?" brow furrowing, he opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything Tsuzuki's phone rang. Blinking, they both looked at the table where it was sitting, and the brunet picked it up, looking at it before answering. And strangely enough, he got up and left the room after making a rather non-committal sound in response to whoever it was on the other end.

Eyes narrowing in confusion, the blond watched him leave – who could he be talking to that he didn't want his partner to overhear the conversation? If it was about the case, which was really the only reason he could think of that Tsuzuki would be getting a phone call, then why couldn't Hisoka know …?

It bothered him, more than he cared to admit.

Glancing around in the dim artificial light from the other side of the room, he saw the clock, and it unsurprisingly read 5:03. This was becoming a pretty obnoxious habit, waking up at around the same time every morning. When caught himself looking at the door his partner had left through he looked away irritably. Hisoka didn't care; he really didn't. It was just stupid – why was the brunet trying to keep something from him? Maybe he wasn't keeping anything from him - maybe he'd left incase Hisoka wanted to go back to sleep. That was perfectly reasonable, and Tsuzuki would probably be considerate like that ...

Five minutes later his thoughts felt like they were starting to gnaw a hole in the side of his brain, and Hisoka knew that he really needed to do something. So, instead of sitting there and waiting for Tsuzuki to come back, the blonde decided to alleviate some of the pressure. Going outside, he went back to that spot in the garden on the stone bench and sat down, still in the clothes he slept in. He had kicked his sneakers on when he left the hotel, and ignored the cold air of the darkness through his orange t-shirt because he hadn't grabbed his coat.

Sighing in exasperation, he forced himself to push his thoughts away; it wasn't going to help him meditate if he was worked up, and he didn't even understand why he was worked up. So Tsuzuki wanted some privacy – so what? He could have it – it wasn't Hisoka's business. I mean, isn't that why he had worked so hard earlier; to learn how to give Tsuzuki - along with everyone else - privacy they were entitled to ...?

_/You just don't like it when people keep things from you; it's an understandable response./_

The voice startled him – he hadn't expected it. But he paused, getting a handle on himself so he didn't fall out of his relaxed state before answering, _it doesn't matter; I don't care._

_/… But, of course, you do care about your partner …?/_

_Well, I mean ..._ Hisoka just barely physically sighed in exasperation. Yes, he cared about Tsuzuki ... But for some reason that question made him uncomfortable.

_/... I don't mean to assume - it's just, you've been thinking about him a lot .../_

_Does it really matter?_ he snapped, annoyed. He was supposed to care about Tsuzuki; they were partners and it was their job to make sure that the other one didn't end up dead or worse on one of their jobs. _I want to try again, _he said simply, changing the subject abruptly. He didn't like the inquiries, so he'd just change the direction of Hakumi's musings. It was obvious what he wanted to try again, and it apparently hadn't been an expected topic, because there was a bit of a pause before he received a response.

_/Are ... are you sure ...?/_

_I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't ... _the response was testy, but Hakumi didn't seem to mind much. Which suited Hisoka just fine - he didn't need any added stressors or he was likely to unload.

It took a while for him to get into a state that he could really focus on what he was doing; he had been more agitated than he thought - however, he managed to calm himself and let go of his frustrated, jumbled thoughts after a little while trying. Then came the tricky part - practice. Practice practice practice ... Develop a vague headache somewhere in his temples and keep going ... The angel's prompt at that development was that, oddly enough, he was trying_ too_ hard. If he just relaxed and let go, it shouldn't strain him like that.

Alright.

Fine.

A little while later, when he refused to listen to Hakumi that he should rest because his headache was getting worse, another piece of advice was offered up to Hisoka, and this one seemed more sensible.

_/It doesn't work if you're afraid; you have to accept it without fear – or hesitation. Don't worry about getting lost; I know it feels like you will – but you are __**you**__. You can't lose that./_

The blond let out a breath, nodding absently and bidding the angel to let him try again. _It doesn't work if you're afraid. Calm down. It doesn't work if you're afraid. Calm down_, he repeated to himself. He focused exclusively on those words, when he felt the emotions start coming again, in small doses at first as usual, before it built up to a more normal degree of feelings. He felt his eyelids relaxing, hands slowly loosening on his pant legs. _Don't worry about getting lost; you'll be fine. It'll be fine. Just calm down …_Slowly he breathed out, letting the sentiments wash over him ...

_/Well done! That's exactly what you need to do - how do you feel?/_

The voice surprised him substantially; he hadn't even noticed that anything had happened, so he hadn't been expecting any sort of abrupt communication – especially not praise … _I feel ... good ... Really good, actually, _he responded after he stopped and thought about it for a moment, surprised by his own statement, but even more surprised that it was the truth. It was like … the artificial emotion around him was almost … bouncing off of him; or maybe more accurately, passing through him without bothering him at all … He was shocked by the assessment, especially since it had been true; he had basically relaxed into this state; it hadn't really taken much real conscious work ... He was so taken aback, and therefore not paying much attention to his surroundings, that he jumped nearly a foot when Tsuzuki put a hand lightly on his shoulder and asked in a slightly distressed tone,

"Hisoka? Hey - are you in there?" The blond took in a sharp breath, eyes snapping open before he realized who was talking to him.

Shaking him off, he murmured, "yeah - fine," getting up from the bench distractedly. He had done it; like, really done it ... The young shinigami couldn't decide if he was excited or stunned, but clearly it showed because Tsuzuki was giving him a concerned look. Shaking his head slightly to get himself back on track, he glanced at his partner and said, "really - Tsuzuki. I'm fine."

He even felt himself smile, just a little - he was just ... so proud of himself. It had only been a small step, but ... Hisoka had never, _ever_ been able to control his empathy before. Ever. Tsuzuki didn't say anything as he followed his partner back into the hotel room; Hisoka wasn't even annoyed that he'd been so abruptly shaken out of his meditation.

Walking back to their hotel room, he grabbed clean clothes to change into and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him absently. Changing his clothes, he couldn't push down this swelling of happiness he was feeling - genuine beatitude ... When he paused a second, sitting on the edge of the bathtub to see if he could talk to Hakumi, that was when he realized … the angel was missing. Or at least didn't answer, even though there wasn't any reason he shouldn't have ...

"… 'Soka …?" there was a knock on the door that made the blond shinigami's head snap towards it, startled again, "I'm bringing a bottle of water – do you want one too …?" green eyes blinked at the wood separating them for a moment.

"Uh … y-yeah. Sure," his tone was a little distracted, because he was thinking. Actually, Hakumi … was never around when Tsuzuki was. If he thought back to the last couple times he had been meditating and speaking to the angel – just before Tsuzuki surprised him out of his trance, which had been most times, actually … Hakumi's presence would disappear. Almost like a frightened bird flying away.

"Hisoka? Are you coming?" Tsuzuki's voice pulled him from his reverie, and he blinked a few times, realizing he had been staring at the floor for who knows how long …

"Yeah," he called, shaking his head; he'd have to think about it later…

* * *

It was another blistering day outside; when they arrived at the Ikeda residence, Muchiro was there waiting for them. So was a rather intimidating supply of fine, sandy gravel; the pile was easily as tall as the house – Hisoka couldn't help but stare, and resist the urge to rub at his eyes to try to dispel the image, as if it were a bad dream. But turns out it wasn't, because it was still there when he looked back again. Great. Today was shaping up to be an excellent day.

As they had walked, the two shinigami had decided on a plan; presuming this was a sun demon, one thing that all the accounts they had been able to find about them said that they were known for having something they were attached to in the area they were inhabiting – a magical epicenter, if you will. Hisoka and Tsuzuki had been meaning to search for it in the yard, possibly phase into the house after Muchiro left if they thought Aneko was distracted; the faster they got this thing, the faster they could destroy it and banish the demon attached to it.

The problem was, it could be anything; usually it was something that had to do with the demon - something sharp. But, if a human had summoned it ... The demon could literally be attached to _anything_ that was tangible and physically attached to this realm. So basically any object. It would have a mark on it - something to do wtih the demon; in this case a cluster of points or maybe a stylized sun ... And at any given size, and really anything that had to do with a point ...

Yeah - they had a lot of searching to do.

But, it seemed before that could happen, they needed to shovel copious amounts of tiny ground up rocks into the yard they'd removed the grass from a few days previous. Glancing around as Tsuzuki spoke with Muchiro, Hisoka realized that they must have sent Tsuzuki back after he'd taken him to the infirmary in the EnMaCho. All of the grass that was supposed to be removed had been, and it had only been three quarters of the way done or so when the blond had had his little run in with the bees ...

Green eyes narrowed in a glower at a window in the house about two hours later as Hisoka stopped to catch his breath; Muchiro had been periodically looking out of it, just watching them work, which was all kinds of frustrating to the perpetual sixteen year old. It was hard to inconspicuously search for anything when someone was constantly scrutinizing you at random. They had managed to pretty much cover most of the outside though - for the most part, Tsuzuki shoveled the gravel from the heap into a wheel barrel, wheeled it to Hisoka, and up-ended it for him to spread out. On his way back and forth, the brunet paid attention to see if he sensed anything - and as Hisoka raked it out, he carefully checked to see if he could sense anything in the area he was working in.

"It could be at one of the other victim's houses ..." Tsuzuki mentioned once while he was helping spread out the gravel. But Hisoka shook his head; he hadn't been to see the other victims himself, but for some reason ... He just knew it was here; there was this feeling he had ...

"It's here ..." the blond answered out of the corner of his mouth, not looking at his partner as he stooped over to continue raking ... And he could _feel _the skepticism coming off of his partner; which only served to irritate him further. And he was too tired to even try what he'd managed that morning when he was meditating, so he just snapped, "I just have a feeling, ok?" And, he didn't wait for a response; he just started raking out the fine gravel more harshly than he had been previously. Surprisingly, Tsuzuki didn't say anything - he stopped helping his partner move gravel, and instead the brunet took up the empty wheel barrel and went to go fill it.

The blond was across the yard from Tsuzuki, near the house, continuing to spread the gravel when he heard a sound. Brow furrowing, he straightened up and turned. Feeling like he was about to pass out from heat stroke, he eventually realized that the sound had come from the house - the door, actually. Or at least, he assumed it had been the door, or maybe the small tray with two glasses of cold barely tea that was now sitting there sliding across the porch. Slowly, Hisoka started towards the porch and glanced around; he felt on edge for some reason. He wasn't facing the house as he went up the three steps. So when he turned around and saw a pair of wide, almost dead looking eyes staring at him from the crack in the door, he jumped a little, and he felt his heart rate speed up. But, before he could react more, a quiet, raspy, whispy voice spoke.

"You've seen him too … haven't you?"

"I … wh—you mean … ?" he asked, still trying to catch his breath - he didn't want to put any ideas in her head, or try to confirm or deny what she was saying … so he figured the best idea was to act as if he didn't know what she was talking about, and let her fill in her own sentence. Of course he had an idea; the report _had_ said that she claimed to have been visited by an angel … So, if Hakumi was the one that she had spoken to, then what she said was true. Though Hisoka wasn't sure how she would know that Hakumi had been in contact with _him_ …

"... He's _yours_ now," as she said this, the corners of her lips curled upwards into a smile almost gleefully, eyes unblinking as she looked at him ... But before Hisoka could ask what she meant by that, she had closed the door the rest of the way, leaving him standing there with the tray of iced tea in silence. The blond didn't really know what to do except sit there, confused. Now; Aneko, to put it nicely, seemed a bit off of her nut - so honestly, he probably shouldn't worry too much about whatever she did mean, but ... The way that she had looked at him - the expression on her face had just ... ... He didn't know. Something about it had just been ...

"... 'Soka ...?" blinking a few times, he glanced over his shoulder, not particularly surprised to see Tsuzuki behind him. He didn't say anything - instead, he turned back and looked at the closed door, brow furrowed. After a moment, he realized that he felt something; she was still there, behind the door, even though she couldn't see him, and he couldn't see her ... She was there; it was almost disruptive, her presence. Maybe it was because he was already so tired from the heavy degree of mental and physical work he was doing, but he just couldn't put a finger on what exactly was wrong. "Did ... something happen ...?" at the tentative inquiry, Hisoka shrugged, shaking his head a little to clear it and come back to reality a little.

"Uh - Aneko brought out cold drinks ..." he offered almost absently - but his eyes never left the closed door.

* * *

It was late when the blond shinigami returned to the hotel. The sun had long since set, and he walked back by street light, hands shoved into his pockets, back hunched against the cold wind. He didn't say anything as he opened the door, but he found as he glanced around the room that it didn't matter. Tsuzuki wasn't back yet, strangely. They had split up when the sun had gone down earlier and they had stopped working; Tsuzuki had said something about needing to go do something before disappearing - he'd never really explicitly told the blond what. Hisoka shrugged it off, instead debating if he wanted to take a bath or not. He had trained with Hakumi again at the beach, so he was particularly tired mentally because he'd worked even more after searching the Ikeda premises while they were working. He was getting better at it though, and that was definitely encouraghing ... But really, he was just exhausted – all he wanted to do was sleep.

In the end he opted not to bathe, he was just too tired … Though at this point it was starting to bug him that Tsuzuki wasn't around. He hadn't even left any sort of note as a clue to his whereabouts. _Well, it's not like I'm his mother or anything; if he doesn't want me to know where he is then whatever,_ he thought sourly after tossing and turning for what seemed like an hour, unsuccessfully attempting to get some shut eye. Sighing in irritation, he got up from the futon he was laying on, not bothering to straighten it out. Sitting down at the small table in the room, he decided to go over the information they had collected for the case; might as well do something productive if he wasn't going to sleep.

When the words started blurring in front of his eyes, he realized it was unlikely he was going to be able to read the documents any more. It wasn't like he was worried or anything. Because he wasn't. The idiot probably went out to get a slice of pie or something. Even if that would most likely put them over their food budget. But that was Tatsumi's problem, not his – and he'd no doubt scold Tsuzuki.

Not that any of that had happened yet or was even set in stone.

Where the _hell_ had he gone?

What if he had done something stupid? That _was_ a trait he was famous for … If he'd decided to go alone to the house? He might've gotten into trouble …

"Hisoka …?" a soft voice made him blink and look up slowly. And then immediately regret it because his neck was stiff, so moving it was unpleasant at best. Hisoka made a displeased noise and opened one eye; he must've fallen asleep sitting at the table. The first thing he saw was a pair of concerned violet eyes.

" … s'zuki …?" he muttered in question; he wasn't quite awake yet, and his whole body was really stiff again. His partner smiled gently at him and let out a breath, almost as if he'd been holding it. Confusion must have been evident on the blond's face, but Tsuzuki didn't say anything. Instead he reached up and carefully brushed his thumb against his partner's skin, just under his eye against his cheek – but before Hisoka could ask what he was doing, Tsuzuki said,

"You fell asleep sitting up … Why don't you lay down? It's pretty late." The smaller shinigami nodded after a moment, still disoriented from being woken up. Tsuzuki wouldn't get that weird smile off of his face; and it wasn't his normal obnoxious loud happy expression. It was oddly soft; almost muted … But it didn't occur to Hisoka to say anything or ask where he'd been or why he was coming back now if it was so late as he slowly stood up, intent on going to bed … However, his legs didn't seem to really get the memo that he was moving now; his socked feet got tangled up and he started to fall. Not that he really needed to worry, because something caught him deftly around the waist and helped him stay upright.

"Tsuzuki …n' … baka …" he muttered, belatedly registering the surprised noise his partner made as he started to fall, and so knowing without looking that it was Tsuzuki that had caught him. Not that it would have been anything else, but he wasn't thinking in that much detail.

"Ne – 'Soka … Why are you so tired …?" an absent shrug and a non-committal sound were the only responses; the perpetual sixteen year old's brain was scrambled enough that he didn't even try to respond really. If he had the capacity to think more, it might've concerned him too that he was so tired, but as it stood he just closed his eyes and the brunet was forced to hold the majority of his partner's weight upright.

He was asleep before Tsuzuki even got him over to his futon, carefully laying him down and covering him up. Because of this, Hisoka missed his partner frowning slightly, brushing a few strands of hair out of his face and looking at his sleeping partner.

" … 'Soka … What's going on with you …?" he muttered to himself, knowing that the soft, worried inquiry fell on deaf ears in the silent room.

* * *

_Black; everything is black._

_Something is wrong … _

_Why am I still walking?_

_I wanted to stop, I thought I had __**stopped**__ ... but every time a gem touched my feet, they moved. They kept falling, and I couldn't stop. I wanted to stop. Something was happening; I'm going somewhere I don't want to go. Looking around, I saw that I was still walking towards the figure in the red yukata; it still looked like a child with dark hair and skin the color of death. And the closer I got, the more I knew that something was wrong … _

_I shouldn't be doing this. _

_Whatever 'this' was._

_Then, I realized that those pearls had stopped falling, because I had stopped walking … But the rhythmic noise continued, slightly differently now … It took a moment before I realized it was blood, dripping onto the floor, and it was coming from the child in front of me. The corners of the mouth were the only part of the face I could see; that was where the blood was dripping from. My legs wouldn't move; I knew I had to turn back – had to stop now, or I wasn't going to survive … But I couldn't move. I couldn't leave. And that mouth … It was smiling, and I knew it was too late as it opened to reveal several rows of needle-like teeth, opening impossibly wide to completely pull me in._

_To devour me._

* * *

"Hisoka! Wake up! HISOKA!" Green eyes snapped open and Hisoka sat up sharply, swinging an arm blindly in the process and probably hitting Tsuzuki, though he didn't notice. Panting, he looked around wildly, heart rate racing, completely disoriented, no idea what was happening. Being woken up abruptly from a deep sleep tended to do that to you, and the blond was no exception. Eventually his gaze landed on Tsuzuki, and it only took a few moments for him to put two and two together to get four.

"Tsuzuki? What the hell?" he managed between pants; he had no _idea_ what had possessed his partner to act as if he were imitating an earthquake, but Hisoka didn't appreciate it. The brunet almost didn't seem to hear him; he was too busy looking Hisoka over, and his concern was nearly drowning the blond. He hadn't noticed it at first, but now that he wasn't so disoriented it literally felt like the atmosphere was too thick to breathe in.

It was sort of an accident when he shoved Tsuzuki off of him – he pushed as hard as he could, but it didn't really seem to do much except jar his partner. He seemed to get the hint though and immediately apologized, backing off. However, that didn't really help Hisoka, and since air was a thing his lungs liked, he made the quick decision that he should probably try out what he'd learned earlier … Though he wasn't sure how well it would work at this scale – it hadn't been this much with Hakumi, and he'd had a hard enough time with that.

Forcing himself to take in a slow breath, he closed his eyes, ignoring whatever his partner was saying in lieu of coaxing his body to stop seizing up, as it often did in situations where there was a lot of heavy emotion present. The breath out was shaky, because this was the hard part. He knew Tsuzuki was worried; and it felt like confused as well … It was strange, because normally, his partner was good at reigning in his emotion better, but the intensity didn't ebb – if anything it started hitting him worse …

But he told himself that was alright; he understood what the emotion was; that usually wasn't hard with Tsuzuki anyway. But it was a lot – it was the equivalent of staring at a thirty foot high wave during a storm and all he had was a surf board. Now he just had to let it crash into him, and hope he didn't end up drowning. Yeah; sounds easy, right?

Honestly, Hisoka was afraid. He would never admit it aloud, but … His own anxiety was pounding just under the surface in the form of his heart rate, and it wasn't helping … Calming himself as best he could, he paused a moment before basically falling off the mental surfboard and into the waves.

At first he was trapped in the current; thrown around, pushed under. Anxiety leapt up in him quickly, but he pushed it down. _It doesn't work if you're afraid. Calm down. It doesn't work if you're afraid. Calm down_, he repeated to himself, trying to force his breathing to slow and willing his heart beat to follow suit. _Don't worry about getting lost; you'll be fine. It'll be fine. Just calm down … _Hisoka outright shocked himself when slowly, the metaphorical waves started receding. The emotional storm was still raging around him but it was almost like … He broke the surface and was just bobbing there …

He'd certainly never done this before in real practice. It was like he was just watching it happen around him; he knew what was going on, but it wasn't affecting him … Hisoka was in shock, but quickly snapped out of it when he nearly 'fell in' again. Stabilizing himself a little better, he slowly opened his eyes … And jumped when his partner's face was scant inches away from his own.

"H … Hisoka …?" Looking at his partner, he actually wasn't bothered that Tsuzuki was still pretty close to him, even if he had backed up a little bit when he spoke. Hisoka could _breathe_; his heart was starting to beat at a normal pace – and best of all … he couldn't feel Tsuzuki almost at all – he was aware of a vague echo somewhere in the back of his mind, and when he focused on it it threatened to surge back into him, but … he could even think straight – he didn't hear _any_ thoughts or even suggestions of thoughts … Or … Or _anything_. It was like … a breath of fresh air after growing up in a city full of smog; he honestly didn't know how to react to it. Because it was so different, it was almost frightening in and of itself, no matter how much of a relief it was.

"Hisoka … is something … … Are you feeling alright ..?" his partner seemed … well, almost as stunned as the blond, but far more confused than Hisoka. Which was strange, because outwardly he hadn't done anything, or changed anything as far as he knew – and Tsuzuki didn't have empathy, so … How could he know the blond had done anything …? Clearing his throat, it hurt for some reason he noticed absently as he shrugged a shoulder absently.

"Yeah - I'm fine Tsuzuki," his tone was level - he wasn't annoyed, he didn't raise his voice, he didn't ... Well, he didn't anything. He didn't have a reason to be angry, or on edge or upset - because he wasn't being overrun with foreign emotions; it was honestly almost surreal for him. Not that the blond could sense it, but he thought that Tsuzuki might not believe him.

He had to infer it though - use something other than knowing what the brunet was feeling or thinking.

And right now, he was actually having a hard time figuring it out - what his partner was feeling ... It was disorienting, to say the least; especially with the next thing the brunet said.

"No Hisoka - you are _not_ fine!" the shout made Hisoka jump back, surprised and confused by it. He was startled by the yell, but not hurt by the sudden violent emotion. Brow furrowing, his head cocked to the side slightly and his eyes narrowed a bit; why was his partner suddenly so angry ...?

"Tsuzuki ... I feel fi-"

"Maybe you think you do _now_! But you are _not_ fine; Hisoka - you-"

"How would you know!?" green eyes flashed just slightly in irritation when he interrupted his partner. Maybe this was his exhaustion talking - maybe it was because he was disoriented, and he wasn't sure how to react because he suddenly didn't know what the brunet was thinking behind his words ... Or maybe he just wasn't sure what to do because he was getting yelled at, but he couldn't _feel_ it ... Whatever it was though, he was displaying it as irritation because it was something familiar in all of this alienation ... "You don't know what I'm feeling - or thinking! You don't know what's in my hea-"

"But I know what I _see_, Hisoka!" Purple eyes started to bore into the blonde's green as the brunet grabbed him; rarely had Tsuzuki ever gotten frustrated enough with his partner that he physically touched him after that first time in the library when Hisoka had felt so threatened that his powers had gotten explosive ... The sudden close proximity of the two of them stopped the blond's argument for the moment.

"And I see _you_ - exhausted, all the time," his voice lowered here, and the confusion must've shown on his face - but his partner continued without acknowledging it. "Hisoka, you are _always_ tired - and it's because you _don't sleep_."

"Wh-what? I-"

"Just ..." suddenly, as frustrated and loud as Tsuzuki had been a moment ago, he sighed heavily, less gripping Hisoka's shoulders and more holding onto them, and his head dipped for a second as he let a breath out. He paused for a long moment, and Hisoka couldn't help leaning forward a little, trying to see his face - at the moment that was the only thing he had to figure out what the brunet was thinking ... Honestly, the temptation to stop what he was doing and just let Tsuzuki in was huge ... But he couldn't; he had finally done something he'd wanted to do for so long; he didn't want to know what Tsuzuki was thinking - he wanted to have a normal conversation; hell, a normal _argument_ would be fine ...

As long as it was _normal_.

"Please - Hisoka, I want to _help_ you," he said quietly; Hisoka's head was starting to swim, but not for the same reasons it normally would have been. He just; he didn't know what to do - he didn't know what that tone in Tsuzuki's voice was, didn't know how to react to anything his partner was saying ... All his life, he had been able to just know what people were feeling or thinking. Everything they wanted to say or meant to say, he just understood it, whether he wanted to or not ... And so, he'd never needed to figure out what a facial expression meant, or what a tone of voice implied ...

Tsuzuki's cell phone rang, but he let it ring, which surprised Hisoka; in the past day he hadn't gone without answering it. But, he looked at his partner, never let go of Hisoka's gaze, and once it had stopped ringing, he continued quietly. "Just ... tell me what's going on ... Something is wrong - what's going on with you ..? Why are you having these nightmares ...?"

"Wait ... night ... mares ...? Tsuzuki, I don't have -"

"You scream, Hisoka." the pointed, factual tone in his voice left Hisoka with little purchase for arguing. He didn't even open his mouth - but then, that didn't really matter, because what he left in silence was made up for by the cell phone ringing. "And cry too ..."

Once again, his partner made no move to pick it up.

"... ... ..."

"Every night ..." he said quietly when the ring tone stopped. "You toss and turn like you're sleeping on hot coals - and you make noises like you're in pain ... And you always scream or cry or call out for help ... before you go a still as death. And then you wake up."

Once again the phone rang, and this time, Tsuzuki made an outright angry sound, finally letting go of his partner completely and turning towards where it was sitting on the table. Violently, he picked it up. Hisoka just watched in some vague state of shock as he answered it and nearly stormed out of the hotel room.

Eventually, Hisoka, put a hand behind himself, slowly sitting down on his futon - his brain was having a hard time comprehending what his partner had just told him. _But ... I've been sleeping well ... For a while now ... _was all he could think in his confusion. It was true though; he had been more tired recently than he had been in a long time, but he'd assumed that was because of the manual labor he'd been doing - not to mention the rather hostile attack that had landed him in the infirmary and the extra mental work he'd been doing ... Slowly he crossed his legs and closed his eyes - all of his thoughts were scrambled up and not making any sense ... He just needed to calm down, that was all.

/_... He is right, you know ..._/

He was surprised when he heard the angel's voice; but he also didn't want to address the statement it made. So instead, he couldn't help the first question that came to mind - he'd noticed earlier, and the paradigm was beginning to show itself pretty candidly - Tsuzuki hadn't left two minutes earlier and suddenly he was hearing from Hakumi when he hadn't since he'd meditated that morning. _Why do you always disappear when Tsuzuki comes around?_ it was a valid question; and it was a noticeable enough pattern that Hisoka thought it was just that, so he wanted to know why, assuming it was deliberate and not happenstance.

/_It ... ... It's not important._/

Hisoka's closed eyes narrowed in suspicion. So it was on purpose ... _Why don't you let me be the judge of that ...?_ There was a very long pause; and the longer the pause stretched on, the more mistrusting he became - this seemed an awful lot like something being kept from him - and he didn't even like it when Tsuzuki did that. So, it wasn't looking particularly good for-

_/… … … He … … He has a darkness inside of him… that makes me uneasy./ _

The blond's brow furrowed and he stopped mid-thought; that hadn't been the response he'd been expecting. He wasn't sure what exactly he had been expecting (probably no response at all honestly) but, 'a darkness' ...? That was maddeningly vague, and held a rather unpleasant implication that Hisoka couldn't fully define … _What … … what do you mean by 'darkness' …?_

_/… I … I wish you hadn't asked … It's nothing; forget it. He's your partner; I'm sure he's good at what he does. It's not my place to say anything./_

_No; really - what do you mean, a 'darkness' ...? _he pried, not sure what to think at this point. _Not your place to say what ...?_

_/Surely you can sense it - at least sometimes ... ? Your abilities aren't just limited to what you use them for most commonly .../_

_Sense wha- wait ... They're not ...?_ this was news to the young shinigami, and the tacked on statement caught his attention quickly enough that he was distracted by it, if only because it was a new concept as far as Hisoka was concerned. Hakumi honestly seemed more confused at the blond's surprise than anything else though.

_/Well, there are a whole host of other things you can do – besides hear thoughts and feel emotions, I mean … /_

_I … … I can?_ Hisoka was surprised by this admission; the extent of his abilities has always been loosely reading minds and being pummeled by emotions. Sometimes when he felt particularly threatened, his power got a little explosive, and he could deal menial damage. He'd demonstrated that one of the first times he'd met Tsuzuki, though the results were lackluster at best if we were considering this as some sort of weapon.

_/Yes; to an extent you have natural offenses, but … That isn't what I meant …/_

He felt his head cock to the side ..._ I've never done anything … else,_ Hisoka sort of protested uncertainly. What else could he possibly do ..? He had always thought that there wasn't any way something good could come from his curse … At the very least now he was able to conquer it a bit, but really he'd never thought about doing anything else with it.

_/You have the ability to have so much compassion for others … You can turn that compassion into something tangible./_

_Tangible …?_ It was obvious that the young shinigami didn't understand. And, after a bit of a pause, presumably because an explanation was being constructed, there was an answer that Hisoka certainly hadn't been expecting.

_/If you wanted … I believe you have the capacity to heal./_

Unsurprisingly, at first the blond didn't respond. Because clearly he had heard that statement incorrectly. Healing was something positive - something good. And if he could do it, that meant that something good could come from this ... curse he'd been saddled with ... How could that possibly … No – there was no way. Either he'd heard it wrong or... ... He needed verification. _I … w-what? … _

_/Only in a limited capacity at first, of course – it's not easy. Only those with a particularly strong gift can even manage it at all …/_ the angel explained quickly, seemingly not wanting Hisoka to get any wrong ideas; leastwise he wasn't sugar coating the prospect any. Though, to be fair, the blond would have been far less inclined to believe it was possible if it sounded like it would be anything but painstakingly difficult ...

What he didn't understand was how mind reading and emotions equated to anything active; those were two very passive abilities, and as previously mentioned he didn't really have much of a penchant for strong active abilities ... ... _But … how? That … doesn't make sense, _he asked tentatively, trying to puzzle out for himself how this could possibly work.

_/Well … you have to … take the injury into yourself. It does injure you in return to a degree, so it shouldn't be used on an extremely serious, life-threatening injury …/ _

_Take it … into myself …?_

_/Emphatic healing isn't easy … In fact it's very difficult, and usually very unpleasant for the one performing it … If you don't think you want to, I wouldn't blame you./_

_No – I didn't say that,_ Hisoka answered quickly; it seemed like a useful skill to have. Even if it would be difficult to learn. _But ... how ...? Do I learn, I mean ...?_ If Hakumi said that it was possible, then he believed it - he had been able to help Hisoka with his abilities. If he had managed that, then it was likely he could teach the blond do literally anything.

_/It's ... It will be as difficult to teach as it will be for you to learn. I can't just make disembodied wounds for you to heal, and you won't be able to heal yourself ... It only works on others./_

_Then, how-? _Hisoka's face wrinkled just a touch, but otherwise remained relaxed - though it didn't much matter, because his words were cut off by Tsuzuki calling for him. And Hakumi was gone immediately - no amount of ignoring his partner garnered a response, though the young shinigami did try for a few moments. Sighing heavily, he opened his eyes, glancing around until he saw the brunet walking towards him.

"What, Tsuzuki?" his tone was clipped, but he couldn't help being annoyed for the interruption. He was still tired, not that he realized it, but he was more irritable for it. For a moment, Tsuzuki seemed a little taken aback because he paused, but Hisoka didn't really notice. He just got up off of his futon and started towards the bathroom. However, as he went to pass Tsuzuki, his partner put a light hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"... 'Soka, what's wron-?" He didn't let Tsuzuki finish though; his immediate reaction was to shake him off, though the action was probably harder than he meant for it to be because his partner wasn't holding onto him with any force. But again, he didn't really notice.

"Nothing Tsuzuki; I'm going to change my clothes," he said sharply but quietly before he started walking again, leaving Tsuzuki standing in the middle of the room, looking worried and hopelessly confused ...

* * *

They went back to the house in silence; it was likely going to be the last day they had to work, because they'd managed to finish distributing the gravel the day before. The only thing left to do was to plant the plants they wanted, and the work would be done - right on schedule. Unfortunately, that might not have been ideal, because though it would be done when it was supposed to be ... It didn't look like they had solved the case yet, nor did it look like they were going to be able to by the end of the day.

Yeah; this situation wasn't looking favorable to the shinigami when they arrived at the house.

However, things started looking up when Ikeda Muchiro immediately met them in the front yard. And told them that he had to go into the office. For the rest of the day.

Score one for the detectives.

Once he was gone, they just needed to get inside the house; the day previous they had searched the entire property and hadn't found anything. Whatever it was that this demon was attached to, it was inside. However, getting inside was going to be a different story. More than that, it was likely to be the only time they'd be able to get inside, so they needed to make the most of it.

Luckily, they had to pick up the plants that needed to be put in the yard, and after they had gotten instructions from Muchiro, they left the premesis. And conveniently, Tsuzuki was perfectly capable of picking up what Muchiro had ordered from a local garden shop by himself. Which meant that Hiskoka could spend this time retrieving a camera.

They reconvened an hour or so later, Hisoka helping wheel the plants into the yard, camera he'd signed out from the Gushoshin's library carefully concealed in the pot of one of them, in case anyone was looking.

And then, for a while at least, they continued working as if nothing had happened - digging holes for the plants, planting them according to the design plan that they had been given. Tsuzuki had even collaborated a little on it with Muchiro. Hisoka hadn't been part of that himself - and honestly, green circles and markings on a piece of graph paper didn't mean much to him, but he also didn't care. As long as the assignment was completed, it didn't really matter to him what the yard looked like.

Just before noon, Hisoka glanced around carefully, searching to see if he could figure out where Aneko was. But strangely, he couldn't seem to pinpoint her smoky, whisp-like presence. Sighing, because they were getting done with the work and standing there contemplating getting inside wasn't helping anything, he retrieved the camera as inconspicuously as possible from the base of a large shrub. Turning towards the house, he didn't see the curtain move back into place when he looked in that direction, which was usually a telltale sign that Aneko was watching.

Approaching, he walked the few steps up onto the small, traditional porch and made his way towards the door. Hisoka wasn't expecting it to be unlocked, but it slid open without a hassle. Eyes narrowing, he carefully raised the camera and snapped a picture of the door before continuing inside. Stepping in quietly, Hisoka still didn't get any indication that there was anyone present, even though he knew that the ill woman was never supposed to leave the house, so she had to be there _somewhere_.

Every few feet he snapped a picture - he had plenty of film, so it didn't matter how much he used. Anything that seemed out of place, and even things that seemed completely ordinary, he took pictures of. Luckily, because this house was still new to the Ikedas, many things were still packed in boxes. Hisoka was willing to bet that whatever item it was he was looking for was probably out somewhere, which narrowed down the search extensively.

Continuing through the sparsely decorated house, eventually he came to the end of the first roll of film. He hit the rewind button and held his breath as the film cycled back to the beginning - it was really loud, much louder than anything he'd done yet in the house, and it had him on edge because he really wasn't supposed to be there. He couldn't phase out either, because the camera wouldn't be able to function like that.

Green eyes scanned the area as he waited for the film to reset, which it did with a loud _click_ that seemed to echo throughout the room he was in, as well as the entire house. Wincing, he waited a few moments, and when there was still no sign of anyone, he carefully switched the film rolls. Once that was done, he resumed taking pictures, though it was much more slowly and cautiously, because for some reason he had an irrational fear that he was more likely to be discovered now as opposed to when he first started inside the house.

Eventually, he got to the last room he needed to enter before he'd taken pictures in all of them but ... so far none of this seemed right to him. He wasn't getting any more inclination that what they were looking for was here than he had gotten outside. So, he continued to search, but the feeling that it was in vain was starting to get to him ... Until he came to the last closed door. And when he opened it he sensed this ... Something; it was hard to describe - but it was like ... it felt like a burst of air, coming from inside the room, though nothing was disturbed; and it was almost like he was undulated in this ... Darkness. But not the kind of darkness you could see; the kind of darkness that made him shiver and his stomach turn in knots. Darkness that didn't come from a lack of illumination - darkness that came from somewhere more primal; more ... sinister.

Taking a slightly gasping, shuddery breath, Hisoka looked around and froze when he saw Aneko. She was laying on a futon on the floor, on her side with her back facing the door. It looked like she might've been sleeping - a blessing for someone who had been suffering from sFI only a few months previous ... Honestly, he couldn't sense her at all, even though he was trying and she was laying _right there_; it seemed more likely that she was dead, rather than sleeping ... In fact, he wasn't sure he could see her breathing ... He felt his heart rate speeding up as he entered the room - but he knew it was here. Whatever he was looking for was in this space; but that feeling that was making his insides churn was so thick, he couldn't figure out where it was coming from ...

Slowly, he raised the camera, snapping a shot ... Then another ... And another ... Actually, he managed to cover the entire room before starting to move closer to Aneko. She still didn't wake up as he continued snapping pictures, which surprised him to some degree, and more than once he considered that maybe she wasn't among the living any more ... He couldn't see much of her, besides her head really - from her shoulders down was covered with a blanket. Just to be thorough though, he snapped a picture of her as well. And when the shutter closed, with that small 'snap' sound, her eyes snapped open, and her dark eyes stared at him, frozen.

The hysterical screaming made Hisoka jump backwards, nearly falling down as he stumbled away, startled and trying to put some distance between them. It was so sudden and he was so shocked that he couldn't concentrate enough to force himself to calm down, so her fear nearly choked him. At first he thought he'd just surprised her, but it became evident that that wasn't the case as the terrified screaming continued, and Hisoka didn't stick around to find out what was going on. Instead, he turned and fairly sprinted out of the house.

And straight into Tsuzuki, who had just been running inside.

By the time the blond made it out, the screaming had stopped, though that didn't stop him from gulping in air like his life depended on it and going deaf from his own heart beat. You try having someone unexpectedly start screaming hysterically in your face, get pelted with pure terror, and remain calm about it.

"Hisoka - Hisoka! What happened?" Tsuzki sank down with him onto the porch floor and had him by the shoulders, and he shook him a little to get the blond's attention. Focusing as best he could, Hisoka shook his head a little. She had been _afraid_ of him. Terrified, even ...

"Huh ...? Nothing," he said, and it was the truth. Slightly dazed, he looked up at Tsuzuki, trying to focus on his partner's face. "She was asleep, and I took a couple of pictures of the room ... And she woke up and started screaming ..." Blinking a few times, he shook his head again, putting a hand to his forehead; he was shaking slightly.

"Are you ... Are you ok ...?" He nodded at the concerned inquiry, swallowing and trying to calm down enough to put another sentence together.

"Y-yeah ... She just surprised me, that's all," and then, he glanced down at the camera. "We should go ... get these developed ..." Hisoka murmured, standing shakily and slipping his shoes back on. Tsuzuki wanted to protest, but didn't, instead, moving away to let Hisoka do as he pleased, rather than crowd him.

* * *

They proceeded to drop the film off and eat something for lunch - it was going to take a few hours for all of the photos to be developed, so they went back and finished planting what needed to be planted. If something showed up in hte photos, they would worry about how to get or destroy the object later - the main importance was that they'd gotten inside.

Standing back to admire their work when they were finished, Hisoka was actually pretty impressed ... Yard work really did suit his partner well; he knew what some of Tsuzuki's suggestions had been, and while he didn't really know what it meant on paper, in practice the yard looked ten thousand times better than it had ... It was almost a work of art really.

That night, they poured over the developed images with a fine toothed comb ... Hisoka mentioned the feeling he'd gotten from what was probably the bedroom though, so they focused mostly on those images.

"Well ... what if you were just feeling the effects of whatever the demon did to keep her alive ..?" Tsuzuki offered at about midnight when they were both completely exhausted and had found nothing unusual. The idea that perhaps the mark they were looking for was on the bottom of an object had been posed more than once, but Hisoka didn't care. He hadn't stopped looking at the photos, except to choke down some ramen when his partner started bothering him about eating without actually saying anything. He was too tired at that point to bother trying to block him out, or even argue with him, and that had been three hours ago.

"It's just ... It's just hard to explain," the blond said with a frustrated sigh, wishing he could give a better answer than that. Putting the heel of his hand against his temple, he leaned back and closed his eyes. They hurt from how long he'd been staring at photographs, trying to figure out what they were searcgubg fir,. "But I know it's here, _somewhere_ ... I just ..."

"Have a feeling...?" Tsuzuki offered, watching his partner carefully. Hisoka didn't answer; yes, that's exactly what it was, but that didn't sound like a particularly reliable source of information. It was just a hunch. Admittedly a strong one, but a hunch non the less. "Listen; it's late - maybe we should call it quits, 'Soka?"_ You're probably really tired, and-_the blond let out a slow breath, not wanting to hear the end of that thought; it would only make him mad and he knew it.

"There's just ... There's something we're not thinking of ... Something we're not seeing," he muttered, opening his eyes and pushing the sheets of paper around, green eyes roving over the images for the thousandth time. It was a minute or two later, but the blond paused, fingers curling around the edge of the blown up picture of Aneko from the file, eyes narrowing as he stared at it ... There _was_ something there that he hadn't noticed before ... A tiny mark; it might've been an imperfection in the image honestly, which is probably why it was overlooked before. In fact, he rubbed at his eyes with the other hand to make sure it wasn't his blurred vision that was putting something there ... Picking up the magnifying glass, he looked again, and nearly dropped the visual aid. Now that he was looking for something ... It was glaring him in the face.

"It's Aneko," Hisoka breathed, voice quiet with shocked realization. Tsuzuki turned to face him, and at his partner's confused look, the younger shinigami held up the image, pointing to her neck; it was a little fuzzy, but there was a mark, partially behind her ear, exposed by how her hair fell. And it looked like three of the points from the stylized sun. "Aneko is what the demon is attached to. _She's_ what we have to destroy."

**Tsu zu ku …**

**(To be Continued …)**


End file.
